


Cherry, Lilac, Summer

by TotemundTabu



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Ableism, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eventual Smut, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Incest, Internalized Homophobia, Multi, Robb Stark is a Gift, Teacher-Student Relationship, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-03-16 02:58:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 35,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13627161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TotemundTabu/pseuds/TotemundTabu
Summary: Due to a peculiar series of events, Jaime moves in with his brother, and while he tries to put his life back together he finds himself  trying to help Tyrion with his new infatuation, while trying to avoid a certain buff university professor ...





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So, since my brain decided that *two* multiple chapters fics at once were not enough and one of them is short anyway, I decided to give in to this idea too. Basically I wanted to write a bit of the two Lannister brothers. And Theon fell in the mix automatically.  
> The title comes from three wine-themed songs: Cherry Wine by Hozier (Jaime), Lilac Wine by James Shelton (Tyrion) and Summer Wine by Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood (Theon) .  
> I want to thank my wife for correcting and Janie for helping and encouraging! ;_;

**Cherry, Lilac, Summer**

 

* * *

 

 

1.

 

* * *

 

 

You never feel like it's wrong.

Sometimes, you find it romantic, you tell yourself that's how love is supposed to feel like: a burn and a caress, the pain and the delight.

You tell yourself if someone wrote _odi et amo_ then love needs to hold hate.

You tell yourself you've problems smiling because of something else, it's something else pressing your chest with a foreign weight –  _what if father finds out? what if Robert finds out? are you on the pill for real this time?_ – and that's all there is to it.

It even works, for a while.

Then you tell yourself it's normal if sometimes it feels wrong, because sometimes it feels right.

And that's not what  _toxic_ looks like, right?

She's not violent, except when she's hurt and crying and screams pour out of her like spilled wine but then it's your fault, you made her angry. You made her mind twist and twitch and hurt.

_You made the cut, you get the pouring blood. It's normal._

_She's a woman, so it doesn't really hurt._

_Repeat it to yourself once again and then again, until it starts feeling real._

_And rational. And right._

_Until you feel stupid for thinking otherwise for a second. Even if you feel stupid already most of the time._

_Toxic_ would hurt, no?

It's a bruise, it will heal, it's a cut, it cicatrizes,  _she barely has 50 kilos, she's a good 20 centimeters shorter than you, it can't hurt, right?_ It doesn't really hurt.

And if your pride hurts, well, why are you considering your pride? She's hurt, you hurt her. Your pride is not important right now.

Jaime's lip twitches and he bites it and sucks it shut and tries to fight back something he can't even call by a name.

His eyes hurt and he feels like they're swollen and something needs to slide out of them.

_It's a bruise pulsing_ , he tells himself with a certain non-chalant carelessness. He knows it's not true, but it's easier to think you need to drain pus out.

He shaves his blonde beard slowly, but he cuts anyway. His hands have started to tremble lately – he should go to the doctor, he should check it out, but he doesn't,  _it's a waste of money it's just you being patethic and indecisive, you're probably pissing yourself at the idea of dad finding out, god, when did you become such a nervous wreck_ – the voices in his head are never kind.

But he guesses that's alright.

They keep him in check, no? We all need some sort of conscience, telling us when we're being too pusillanimous or too weak or too pathetic. We all need a whip on the neck in the shape of her voice.

He curses, as blood spills from his chin.

He feels light headed, dizzy.

And he blames the lack of coffee. And he blames the daylight savings time. And he blames everything but the fact seeing blood lately sends spirals of vertigo up his nerves.

He puts cotton on it, and he looks down, breathing. He tries not to look at himself in the mirror too much.

He looks only at details: his jaw and his cheekbones when shaving, his eyes when putting on contacts, or his teeth to brush them: what he needs to, strictly for the time he needs to.

He can't bear to stare at his face.

He can't know why, because he always liked it – it is the same as Cersei's.

He wonders if it's because he's getting old, but he tries not to think too much about it, because when he tries his head pulses black and he loses sense of reality for a moment and he feels like he's walking through gravity less, heavy fog.

His eyes are watery and lucid.

_They must be irritated_ , he decides, quickly, before his mind suggests another reason.

And he puts on his glasses, instead of contacts.

His fingers tremble on the thin sticky leg. He takes them off.  _Cersei hates them_ .

He feels his breath accellerate and he tries to put them on the bathroom shelf again but he drops them and they fall on the sink with an acute clank.  _Butter fingers_ .

A chocked laugh mixed with a breathless sob comes out of him.

_It's just pus, it's just the pus, it hurts your eye and then it gives you a headache and look at you, Jaime, you're a wreck._

He washes off his face, forgets to put on perfume and goes out like that. His hair is perfect but he keeps pulling it back, touching it, nervously, unsure if it is how she likes it.

She's not even going to come to work, but he needs to be ready. Just in case.

So she won't say much. So she won't criticize.

He feels so small, inside him a storm seems to squish him down.

He freezes and shivers, as he arrives to his car, and feels his chest pained – he feels so small, so thin, so weak, his hands tremble and he forces himself to drive.

He hates to. He dislikes the way too much goes on next to him, he dislikes the rules, he dislikes the responsability that comes, the sense people could die if he fucks up, he hates driving, loathes it.

He feels his stomach sink at every curve, at every fast car – his eyes clench and shut and he feels his breath short and cut as if someone has punched his stomach. He is panicking.

_You're a wreck._

He pushes the wheel completely to the right and the car ends up in a small blotch of grass near the road, while his heart pumps desperatedly.

Why is he panicking? He has no reason to. _You're such a ridiculous coward, Jaime. What a pussy. Would it cost too much for you to not constantly have me fix things for you?_

“ _This is too much.” Shut up. “She didn't do anything, her children didn't do anything, divorce Robert, instead.” Shut up, Jaime, you fucking pussy. I'll have to take care of it myself, all alone, as usual, I can never count on you, can I? You hypocritical, passive whimp._

Right. He pants.

It is the anniversay of the day, the day he – oh fuck. 

He feels like puking as he opens the car’s door.

_We need that kid to shut up, Jaime, you'll take care of it, right? You won't let it hurt me, right? You won't abandon me all alone, right? “I did what you wanted.” I never asked that, I never, ever asked that, how dare you? How could you think that of me! With a child! “But you... you did.” Did I? You did, Jaime._

Jaime feels his heart skip beats and his hands tremble when he reaches for his mobile.

“Please, don't be in class, don't be in class...”, he whispers breathless.

“Jaime?”

Tyrion's voice comes like a blessing and mercy. He lets out a sigh of relief.

“Ty, hey. - he scoffs, trying to act as if he is okay, that's the best he could do, he is the older brother, after all... he licks his dry lips – What are you up to?”

“Nothing big. You?”

_I'm tired all the time._

_And days melt together and I feel my chest’s breath. But its emptiness is heavy as concrete._

_And it's sweet like blood before the taste of iron kicks in, sour._

_She's a wine too strong for me to handle and she makes me dizzy, but it's good, I promise, it's good._

Tyrion sounds worried, “Jaime?”

A coldly-echoing, pruple-aching chuckle, “What about we grab a cup of coffee?”

Tyrion's voice turns perplexed, but he hides it behind a confident smile. “Sure. ” Jaime can almost see it.

Tyrion is good at tricking others, but he knows him well enough.

_She's mine. I'm hers. When you belong to someone too much, too deep, the lines get blurred and limits confusing._

_It's normal, I think._

_There are no boundaries and no traced limits when you live in the fog of someone loving you so much your skins mix and your scents are stained with each other's salt._

_She doesn't mean half of what she does, I'm sure._

“I'll be at the university in like.... fifteen minutes. - Jaime says, breathing out – Are you in your office or...?”

“Yup. I'm correcting a thesis, so, umh, ring me up when you're here.”

“I’ll come there directly, don't worry, no need for you to come to the parking lot.”

“My legs are short but they still work, you know?”

Jaime gives a strained laugh, so thin and tense Tyrion imagines it snapping like a pulled wire.

“I just want to let you do your job, _professor_.”

“I didn't see the hilarity at twentyfour and I still don't see it. - Tyrion informs, smiling at the phone – Somebody had to disappoint dad and with me, well, what can I say? It comes natural.”

“What an enviable talent.”, Jaime says, only half-joking.

 

*

 

The University is way louder than he remembers it, but – Jaime realizes – it could also be due to his choice of faculty. He had opted, under Cersei's advice, for Economics & Managment to keep working in the family business and staying therefore close to her without provoking suspicion from their father; and admittedly that was not exactly the most cheerful and animated environment, especially at the time.

Groups of flocking students are shouting at each other about philosophy or art or history, dropping names that Jaime knows or has heard of, but that he knows he couldn't pull a discussion on.

And somehow that leaves him feeling empty.

He liked hsitory as a kid, much like Tyrion.

But between the hard times reading and the fact Cersei found it boring, he never followed much with it.

Reading, that is torture.

Not for Tyrion, though, that stubborn boy has always loved reading, he will consume books, munch them with the quickness of an hamster with corn. He devoures them. And will always try to talk to Jaime about them.

_Did you know why Cesare Borgia was nicknamed Valentine? Did you know Sissi's cousin was obsessed with Swans and Wagner? Did you know about Bakunin?_

But Jaime has always just nodded, distractedly.

Maybe it is painful to him, in some way, to see him doing so easily something he can't if not with great effort or being judged.

And he has always admired Tyrion's resilience, his stubborness.

Though it comes with infinite bitterness, with a lifetime of turning things into victimization – their father and Cersei have surely been indelicate, no? But cruel? Cersei cruel? That isn't possible. She is just bold.

Regardless, he feels a weird wave of guilt while thinking that.

Tyrion has had a hard life, sure, money has helped him a lot, but there are things from which it can't shield you.

And absence is one of them.

Jaime remembers all too well the only girlfriend Tyrion has ever had and how his father sent her away, calling her a gold-digger, and berating Tyrion for years about how stupid he could have been – in... what? Thinking he could be loved?

Jaime bit his lips to the blood.

Tyrion is loved. He does love him, atrociously, immensely so.

But he supposes, then again, that maybe even that love seems like nothing, when the only example of two siblings loving each other has been him and Cersei.

Sometimes Jaime wonders if Tyrion ever feels excluded due to that, or if he has always thought that him and Cersei have the normal sibling love and he lacks even that. Of course, he would have realized later that it is not the case. But maybe, in a part of him, the darkest, densest of dark thick nerves, he still keeps that sensation, trapped in black and tied with ropes, like a core of fear and rejection that has never abandoned him.

Maybe Tyrion always feels alone also due to him.

The idea tears a hole in him like a lit cigarette in thin fabric.

He feels sick for a moment and pauses, mid step, blinking, staring in the void, a cramp runs through his stomach, while nausea slaps his throat inside out. He blacks out, standing without feeling anything.

_I wish he was dead. He's not our brother. I wish I could tear his heart out. Don't act like you wouldn't._

His lips quiver, he squints his eyes, breath shivering inside his throat. _She's not like that, she didn't mean it for real._

An arm touches him.

_I know you're like me, Jaime._

“Are you fine?”

Instinctively, ferociously, he pushes the arm away.

He turns, jolting, his lips bent in a grimace, his eyes burning in betrayed rage; when he turns, he sees someone who does not look like Cersei at all.

Ungracefully tall, unharmoniously big, unblessed by curves, with sour hay hair and wide swollen lips. She is the opposite of Cersei in every way.

His eyebrows bend in a mocking lift. “I am. Did you land on your face too many times?”

The woman moves a step away, sucking her lips, furrowing her eyebrows.

She doesn't seem upset about it, or hurt, more than anything, she seems annoyed with having wasted her previous worry on him.

_Good_ , Jaime thinks,  _go away, stop being so close, I don't need help._

She moves closer to him again anyway, Jaime at first prepares to twist and turn to slam her away, until he feels something warm and sleek drip on his skin.

And she is handing him a handerchief. Her glance is not pleased, her lips are clenched in contempt, but her hand is still turned towards him.

Jaime's lips tremble as he tries to reply, what he is not sure, but he needs to say something, and then he tastes the irony dark liquid.

Bitter.  _So bitter._

_Like her cunt._ She stopped being sweet years ago, but she calls him in all the same.

_She's a bad habit, she's wine I can't put down._

“Take it.”

The ugly woman's voice is tense, unnerved, but doesn't raise, as Jaime tries to move to get the handkerchief, instead, she puts it on his nose, pressing. He emits a low, hoarse “ouch” as she squishes it on his nose and bends his head back and up.

His voice comes out all deformed and nasal, “You don't have to give others your nose, you know.”

She groans, “Are you bleeding out your manners too, together with half your aortic content?”

“That was funny. - he admits – I suppose you have to make up for … _that_ with a good personality, right? A true burden given the situation.”

She sighs, “Aren't you too old to do drugs with the young students? - she berates him, frowning – I get it, you arrived in University later and are trying to get the full experience, but at your age, it...”

“At my age?”, he snaps, the handkerchief dropping on the ground.

His nosebleed, though, has stopped.

“Yeah. - she looks quickly at him, at his shirt with sleeves rolled up and now stained red – You're a student no?”

“No. - he scoffs, outraged – I'm here to see my brother.”

“Oh.”, she blinks, surprised and confused.

“Why? - he scoffs again, a thin-lipped smirk raising on his lips – you’re hope to see me again soon? Exchanging notes and study sessions? You're not my type.”

And then she almost glares at him and Jaime finds himself uncomfortably glued and nailed on her muscly neck and the way her jaw clenches.

“Rather glad I won't have to see you at an exam.”, she replied.

“Jaime!”

He turns and sees his brother, moving towards him with a frantic worried step. Only then does Jaime move a hand to his face to feel how much he has bled out, on the beard the blood was starting to dry and pull, but on the other zones it was still coldly wet.

“I, uh, Tyrion...”

Tyrion turns to the ugly woman and then to him again, rolling his shoulders down and looking exhausted and vaguely disappointed, “Did you insult professor Tarth?”

He frowns and looks at the woman, younger than both him and his brother.

She lets out a small smile of courtesy, “Don't worry, Tyrion, he was as well-mannered as he could afford.”

Tyrion glares at Jaime.

“What did you do to her?”, he asks immediately.

“Nothing! - Jaime lies, defensively, childishly, feeling accused – She... she helped me, I had random epistaxis.”

Tyrion frowns and Jaime knows his disproportionately big brain is mentally scrolling the list of all the things a nosebleed could be a symptom of, especially lingering on all the negative ones like alcohol abuse or drugs or high pressure.

“It happens, okay? - Jaime smiles, smug – You need more than this to knock me off.”

“Sadly.”, the woman mutters to herself.

Tyrion sighs, unconvinced, “Well, Jaime, this is my collegue, Brienne Tarth, of the Philology department. - he smiles to her – And, Brienne, this is... Jaime, he's my evil twin.”

“I guessed.”

“Was that a joke? - Jaime cocks a brow – You can joke?”

Tyrion opens his mouth and pulls Jaime's hand down with a strong grasp, like he is pulling the reins of a horse.

Jaime rolls his eyes to the ceiling and shows Brienne a smirk, “Thank you for your help, unlikely nurse, but me and my brother have to go.”

Brienne shakes her head in annoyance and shows instead a smile to Tyrion.

“See you tomorrow at the medieval poetry conference.”

“I'll keep a seat for you next to me for maximum height jokes potential.”, he grants.

And she laughs.

And her laugh is crystaline and warm like tides of august mediterranean waves.

And Jaime feels in his guts something twisting weirdly and absurdly.

Tyrion stares at thim, frowning, then mumbles, “I really can't leave you alone for five minutes, can I?”

Jaime rolls his eyes to the sky, “That's my line, Ty.”

The other gives him a knowingly look and then he squints his eyes and raises his eyebrows, “Have you changed some medicine?”

Jaime shakes his head, realizing his brother is still speaking about the blood.

“Nah, I'm sure it's nothing to worry about.”

Tyrion doesn't seem convinced, “Do you want to come to my office? So you can change.”

“I'm not sure we share the size, Tyrion.”

Tyrion gives Jaime a smile charged with resentment, “We also don't share the underwear one, but I don't mock you about that, do I?”

“Fine, fine, I was stupid. - Jaime sighs – You have a shirt for me in your office?”

“I have that sweater you left here when you came in spring and it was too hot.”

Right.

“Do you always shed in other people's offices or am I special?”, Tyrion asks then, trying to sound funny and light-hearted again.

“Only when they're already aware of my secret identity.”

Tyrion seems distacted then and Jaime raises his eyes to meet the spot on which his brother's are focusing.

A man, handsome, sure, but a man. Jaime frowns, confused, and glances back at Tyrion.

His brother is many things but into men is not one of them, he has always been irredimably heterosexual.

He thinks, for a moment, maybe it is like one of those wishful thinkings, in which you look at someone and wish desperatedly to look like him instead of yourself, but then someone comes from behind the young man, and kisses him on the cheek.

A redhead.

Beautiful, doll-faced and buxom – she looks like she has strawberry flames for hair, and her smile is sweet, a freshly fallen snow.

Now, that makes more sense.

He smiles and looks at Tyrion.

“Student?”

“I'm her supervisor mentor.”, Tyrion replies with a calm mutter, his breath seemes still with a certain shyness.

Jaime lifts slightly the corner of his mouth and bends his head to the side, “She's cute.”

“She's brilliant, mostly.”, Tyrion mumbles, as if that is the problem.

“And the guy with her is …”

“Theon Greyjoy. - Tyrion breathes out – Our most handsome and beautiful assistant professor.”

“Ouch.”, Jaime lets out and then returns to look at the guy hoping to find a flaw of any kind he can point out.

Mission fails pretty quickly and every instant seems to draw Tyrion more into deflated defeat.

Jaime feels a protective pain sting like a thorn.

He needs to protect him, to shield him.

“He looks quite gay.”, he says then.

“Pft! - Tyrion laughs bitterly – He is quite the libertine, we can exclude that one.”

Jaime sighs, he supposes Tyrion is used to that slow grief when you long for what you can't have, that comes to you dark and heavy like low tide waves of melancholy, but Jamie isn't as used to seeing him hurt.

“Jaime. - Tyrion smiles, he tries to seem amused but the corners of his lips are tense and sharp like fabric kept up by thin needles and the edge of cold metal itself – It's fine. She's a brilliant student and that's it.”

Jaime looks at her again.

Sure, she is red of hair, but there is a sweetness about her that he can't help but think reminds him of their mother.

_Does she remind you of mom too?_

_Or just the idea of her?_

_She was sweet. Though not as sweet as one dreams mothers to be. She had an edge, a swift cutting side. Like Cersei._

_But Cersei is bitter. Like dense water that is just melted ice – it has a slimy after-taste, because it's dead water._

“So... what brought you here?”, Tyrion asks, to change the topic.

His hands are in his trousers pockets, Jaime notices.

His voice dribbles and flipperes inside his throat before coming out strained and hoarse. “I wanted to have coffee with my brother, do I need a special reason to?”

“During office hours? - Tyrion scoffs – Yes.”

When they arrive in the little room that is Tyrion's studio, the younger enters and grabs the sweater from a drawer – it smells a bit like the closed space and dust, but Jaime puts it on all the same.

It is larger than he was that spring.

He can almost swim in it.

He knows Tyrion has noticed it, but he pretends he hasn't and smiles, “Thank you.”

“So. - Tyrion asks again, this time without looking at his brother – What brought you here?”

Jaime sighs and sinks into Tyrion's leather chair, breathing in and out loudly, as if he is trying to collect his courage.

“I, hm, was considering... quitting.”

“Smoking?”, Tyrion asks, half-bored.

“Working for dad.”

That gets Tyrion's attention and he frowns and turns. “What?”

Jaime licks his lips and groans, “We had a discussion and, well, he said, you know, his usual stuff: you need to obey, this company is more important than your tantrums, only one Lannister reigns at a time...”

“Delightful as always. - Tyrion observes, not too impressed, but still unsure – Not that it is unheard of you standing up to father, but... how did she take it?”

“She who.”

“Donatella Versace. - Tyrion turns on his personal coffee machine, guessing they may need one before going out – Cersei, who else.”

Jaime lets out a scoffed laugh that almost chokes him.

“Why would it matter? She may take it badly, but it's not like it changes much.”

Tyrion sucks his lips and nods, “Are we playing a game in which we say the opposite of what we think? You should inform me next time before we start.”

Jaime tries to object but Tyrion hands him his coffee in a small plastic cup along with a sugarcube.

Jaime raises an eyebrow, amused.

“Brown sugar?”

Tyrion's face stiffens and his cheeks seem to turn a warmer shade of pink.

Jaime flashes a gorgeously annoying and annoyingly gorgeous shit-eating grin.

“Does she like brown sugar?”, he asks, cooing.

“That's not the topic at hand!”, Tyrion replies, bursting, nervously, and sipping his own coffee.

He looks like a small barking puppy and Jaime feels weirdly happy and playful seeing again the child he loved to play with instead of the adult he has failed over the years.

“What's her thesis on?”

Tyrion lowers his head and looks away, “Songs and epic poetry as moral compasses and cultural turning points in medieval society”, he mumbles.

“Oh. - Jaime chirps, his lips curling up – How adorable. Didn't pin you for one who likes them naive.”

“Ah, cut it...”

“No really. - he smiles – Maybe you should invite her out and serenade her an...”

“She's _normal_ , Jaime, can you fucking stop.”

Tyrion had half yelled.

He usually doesn't.

Even when embarrassed, he will resort to self-deprecating jokes or sacrasm, not to downright shutting him up; Jaime didn't expect the wound to be this pulsing and the pain that pinching.

He sucks his lips and drinks in silence.

It is Tyrion to break again the mutism, by clearing his throat, “What did you think of doing, if you drop the family business? Dad is going to cut you off from your funds, you know that, right?”

“I know. - Jaime admits, swallowing dry, he doesn't adore the prospect – I want to take some time for myself, figure things out.”

Tyrion raises an eyebrow, skeptical.

“Does that include making another child with Cersei?”

Jaime almost spits out his coffee, coughs and burns his tongue. He turns to Tyrion with eyes wide and forces himself to twist up a laugh of disbelief.

“Jaime, please. - Tyrion shuts him up immediately – Don't treat me unfairly. My IQ is higher than my height.”

“You know. - Jaime stands up, avoiding Tyrion's glance, trying to fake his most disappointed voice – One thing is accusing us when we were just kids, experimenting, playing around, one thing is now. She's married, Ty.”

He lifts an eyebrow.

“Is that the main objection you have?”

“Excuse me?”

“Not that she is... I don't know, your sister?”

“Our sister.”

“I'm not the one fucking her.”

“Well, me neither.”

“Then those kids have somehow destroyed years of genetic knowledge.”

Jaime freezes, his voice comes out as a cracked wrinkled whisper, “...what do you mean?”

Tyrion groans, rolling his eyes to the ceiling, “Blood types. You're lucky Robert never cared to check. That poor fool trusts Cersei for some unexplicable reason.”

Jaime swallows down, dry.

“Bad life choices. - he snickers, tense – You cannot force people with the wit of a potato to be reasonable.”

“If that makes you feel better about your own choice.”

Jaime seems to take offence, but he just crosses his arms, red in the face, looking towards the door.

“Are you getting revenge for my jokes of before? - he asks, thorny – Don't you think it's fairly enough of a punishment by now for crossing your lines?”

Tyrion sighs, “Believe it or not, I don't have a problem with you and Cersei... living the Borgia lifestyle. - Jaime seems to listen then and Tyrion proceeds – I have problems with the way she... whips you around.”

Jaime scoffs.

“She's right about you then.”

“That sounds just unrealistic, but expand.”

“Well. - Jaime's voice then sounds strained and sleek, as if he is quoting unconvinced – Cersei is a strong woman, she knows what she wants, and you're afraid of them.”

Tyrion lets out an unnerved grin, “Oh yeah, I'm such a misogynist, absolutely testified by the three women professors I picked this year alone for the department. - he pauses – One of which, Brienne, you can for sure tell I'm not planning on asking sexual favors from for gratitude.”

Jaime labours to gulp down that knot.

“Maybe she makes you feel uncomfortable with...”

“... with the way she controls every aspect of your life and drains you?”, Tyrion suggests.

_She's just too much. She's too much for everyone._

_Only I know how to take her, only I know how to love her – and she loves only me for this, because I'm the only one, the only one, the only one …_

_She's too strong also for me. Wine and gasoline._

Jaime lets out a thin smirk, “You don't know what you're speaking about. - and then a wicked spark runs through him, it cuts him, it makes him bitter and angry, and he scoffs – Not that you'd know what a relationship looks like, you never had a serious one in your life.”

He realizes he has crossed the line again as he finishes.

He knew he would have, but it doesn't even feel real. It doesn't feel like his mouth, his words.

But the wide, heart-broken eyes, for sure, were his brother's.

“Right in the empirism. - he laughs, sand paper and weak dust in his voice – Fine, then.”

Jaime opens his mouth to say something, but, when he sees Tyrion looking away, he opens the door and exits the room.

As if by leaving behind Tyrion, he could somehow leave behind what he said, make it unreal or unimportant, as if not facing it could help.

It works fine with Cersei, though.

He stays still, though, leaning on the door, eyes closed, breathing in the unmoveable air of his mistake and how sour it tasted fighting with Tyrion.

Fighting with Cersei doesn't feel like that: it feels like thunder running through his brain, blood electrocuted, his head can't think or formulate or respond.  _I go in overload because I love her too much_ , he repeats to himself,  _I can't bear to fight with her._

“Is professor Lannister in?”

Jaime blinks, then, as if waking up, and sees next to him the young man of before. What did Tyrion say he is even called? He is way prettier up close.

“Sweet cheeks, you're beautiful but not transparent. - the man says, snarky, raising an eyebrow and smirking – Do you feel like you could either move or tell me if professor Lannister is in?”

_Theon Greyjoy, right._

“He's in. - he replies, moving from the door, forcing himself to look away – But he's not in the best mood.”

The other snorts.

“I can see that. - he then grins, and gives a sympathetic smug look – Clean that blood, you'll scare people off.”

Jaime glances at himself in the window on the other wall in front of him.

It looks like wine.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I want to thank everyone who commented the first chapter or liked it. I didn't expect such huge kindness. English is not my first language, so I'm always a bit afraid to write "weirdly" and you all made me feel like my style was good. If I didn't reply yet, I will tonight!  
> I hope not to disappoint you <3 This chapter came a couple days later than I meant to because me and my wife are organizing to move and it was... hectic. But I've already started the next one, so I'll hopefully be quicker ;)  
> This has still some Lannincest even with sexual details because Jaime is still there *sighs* y___y but he will notice our beloved Bri soon (you can do it, J, we cheer for you!).  
> Thank you again to all of you!  
> And also to that poor soul of my wife for correcting!

2.

 

* * *

 

 

He should apologize to Tyrion.

Ask him for forgiveness.

He had overstepped, he knows this much. Anger had boiled and fried his nerves and turned him and he bit the hand that was trying to undo his chain.

_It's not a chain, it's a collar._

_Perhaps._

Probably Tyrion really meant to protect him, as much as he could, but he doesn't know Cersei like he does.  _From the outside, of course, she may seem bad, but she's not like that, she's not, she's just... she has this side, this tenderness she shows only to me. Others can't know and judge her without understanding that._

_They don't know her like I do._

_How pure she is, pure and raw like blood._

It is not Tyrion's fault, he had analysed things with the information he had access to, after all,  _and maybe years of Cersei siding with Tywin made him doubtful and resentful of her, blind to her pain, deaf to her poor vulnerabilities._

Jaime takes his mobile in his hands, trying to find a way to tell him, but the words seem to escape him while he is writing. He is not sure how to put it.

The more he tries to defend Cersei, the more he finds himself unable to, an objection always rises in the back of his head and he finds himself stuck and mixed up. His head spins, he finds himself swallowing, unsure how to process the thoughts into words out of his fingers.

Tyrion, though, must have been looking at “Jaime is writing...” since minutes, because he precedes him.

 

Tyrion:

are you writing me a whole divina commedia, Dante?

 

Jaime:

I'm not sure how to pur what I need to day

 

Jaime notices something is wrong, the autocorrect had changed some words. He hates that. It makes him feel even more unable, more …  _are you stupid? How do you get this spelling wrong? God, you're so retarded even the deformed rat is better than you._ But he knows he is not able to type long words or the ones with too many vowels or with too many consonants close to each other without autocorrect, or when there are ls or ys around and he feels his eyes sting again.

_It's the light, it's the hard, sharp light of the afternoon._

But Tyrion understands what he meant.

 

Tyrion:

it's fine

I can call if you want

or we can act like you’ve already apologized and next time we meet up we skip directly to you offering me dinner ;)

 

Jaime:

sure :-)

 

Tyrion:

Jaime I'm trying to be nice here, don't give me nose-equipped emoticons

 

Jaime:

… they look weird without them :-( 

 

Tyrion:

you're like 80 inside

 

Jaime laughs and his thumb caresses the screen softly, he smiles at the little green balloon with Tyrion's message.

 

Tyrion:

actually

why don't you join me for a faculty dinner? I have a +1 to exploit.

 

Jaime frowns, taking a moment to think about it, then Tyrion simply sends him a voice mail, repeating the question and embroidering eulogies and praises to the restaurant they would go to. Jaime ends up letting out a weak laugh, but his eyes fall on his own body with a certain worry.

He gulps dry. 

Something twists in his stomach at the idea of eating in front of others, with others.

Would there be women? Would Cersei think badly of him? She surely wouldn't approve of him seeing Tyrion either, but he always does –  _she doesn't mean it for real, she's just strained and afraid, she probably thinks that I prefer him to her, it's understandable jealousy –_ and yet meeting other people, and women nonetheless, for dinner, without her, without telling her, would be bad. Truly bad. How can she trust him if he doesn't warn her?

But it is dinner, just dinner.

_I should tell her, for sure she won't have problems with me going but it's important she knows. Remember the last time she found you getting coffee with Melara or Jeyne? They invited you while you were at the office and you betrayed Cersei's trust. It was just coffee. Then why didn’t you warn her? They are her friends, I didn't know... I thought it was obvious I wouldn't... I never did. Then why didn’t you warn her? Did you subconsciously want her to suffer? Or were you just careless, Jaime? Hm?_

His voice trembles when he replies, hoarse, hesitating, “I'll ask Cersei” in the microphone.

_It's not like I'm asking for permission. I'm asking if she'll be hurt. It's different._

_Not doing things that would hurt the ones we love is part of love, isn't it? It's care. It's not bad._

_If she can, she'll let me._

Tyrion's typing dots stay mid-conversation for a while, before disappearing.

And reappearing again, just for a moment.

 

Tyrion:

let me know

 

*

 

Cersei's husband, Robert, has this sort of need for overcompensation that he applies to everything: big dogs, big cars, big villas. Everything needs to be huge.

Jaime has his theories on the reason why, but Cersei always refuses to either refute or accept them, she just groans and tells him to not overstep.

In a way, only she can complain about Robert.  _Which makes sense, she's the one who has to suffer him._

She has had more to adapt, to accept, and complaints about him were to be read as complaints about the time and space Cersei could give him, which she was very keen on reminding him was all that she could if not even more. 

Jaime learnt soon that he needs to think better and more about Cersei, focusing hard on not asking too much. She is smarter than him though, she must be, because he barely sees half the problems that to her are utterly obvious.

It must be tiring for her to keep explaining everything over and over to him, but Jaime accepted a long time ago that his brain is more in his chest rather than his head, differently from Tyrion, and that love can make him clingy and silly.

Cersei is more of a man than him, he supposes. She is devoted but never oversteps – she reminds him of that often. Jaime sucks his lips, nodding to himself.

But his chest hurts all the way to the house.

It still hurts when he rings the doorbell and nobody opens.

_She should be home_ , he knows – Robert is away on a little fishing and hunting trip together with his old friend Ned Stark. They always try these laughable attempts to feel young again, or at least Robert does it for that, Ned seems to passively follow like a good love-struck dog.

_She should be home_ , he knows – but he rings and nobody opens and maybe she's with the kids, the kids he didn't raise, the kids he saw only as an uncle and never too close, the kids he's not allowed to meet alone –  _for their own good, Jaime, what if you have one of your emotional fits and selfishly confess who you are? They don't deserve that, Jaime, I don't deserve that._

_She should be home_ , he knows – and he knows he shouldn't enter when she doesn't reply, but something feels wrong and the low terror of the possibility of her being sick comes to him and slaps him like a wave of fear and nausea, dark and twisted and sickening like the brackish water of a sea filled with seaweed and plastic.

There is no space for him to breathe in a place with Cersei, but he's not sure he can breathe air she doesn't share.

Regardless of her actual presence, he is always alone and she is always with him.

_That's love, isn't it?_

He feels his nose tingling and pulsing. Droplets of blood fall again, dense with their tired taste of iron, down to the slit of his lips, tying themselves to his stubble.

_Gold and blood._

_But she prefers green to match her gold._

_She always has._

He remembers a time where his favorite color was green too – the tender green of summer leaves and of spring grass, the weakest and the sweetest, the child of all colors. And he remembers the day he started hating it, when he saw that green shine wet and lustful, as it met the violet and the silver of Rhaegar Targaryen.

Cersei had loved him,  _liked him, at least_ ; and Jaime knows. He pretended not to notice for years, not to see how she played with her hands or hair when the boy crossed her way, or to not take seriously the way she flushed and wrote his name or drew him on soon to be crumpled notebook pages, or how quickly her attention shifted to him, like wind in summer storms.

And Jaime smiled and kissed her hair and neck, and pulled her close in the night, biting into her as he drove his hips.

And he spent weeks just praying, over and over, for her not to say his name during sex, at least that.

Cersei had always denied it anyway, and Jaime never had the courage to ask and break his thin glass heart.  _It's easier to bury things under, it's easier to escape it, if I go away, if I close my eyes, if I find peace inside, then I can put up with everything._

_I'm just focusing on the important things, on the core, on the future._

_We all have to put up with bruises to then grow strong, we all have some dents, expecting perfection is unrealistic. It's normal, it's normal, it doesn't mean all of it is to throw away. She's my only home._

He presses on his nose with the sleeve of his sweater, thankfully black.

She hates sweaters, why didn't he change into a shirt? He should have put on the Armani she got him for their birthday together with the nice Gucci tie, she had picked it so well.  _They suit you. You suit me._

_Do I? I feel so ugly all the time, like some rotten thing, excavated by the current, eroded away, like I'm worm-eaten wood under a cover of gold. How do I suit you? You're perfect and I'm myself._

_The waste, the twin of scrap cells._

_I'm only whole when I'm with you, I only make sense as a part of you – you're the sun, I'm just the moon, my gold is a reflection of yours and I bathe in it like a child._

_We fucked the morning of your wedding and you held onto me, as I dug into you, as I sank, a current without a home, returning to you desperately and voraciously, and you scratched lines of blood over my back and held my neck and moaned my name. So convincingly enraptured, for a moment, we didn't need churches or sacraments._

_Our golden wedding rings were carved in our flesh and our bones, somewhere deeper than skin, hidden from sight, hidden from slight._

As blood tickles and stings down his neck, for some reason, he remembers Brienne Tarth.

He had been unkind to her, but she had something that rubbed him wrong. She was familiar, in a way that felt wrong.

_I should apologize_ , he thinks, while he puts the key into the lock and enters in the villa.

And when he walks in, going through the living rooms, seeing none of the kids running and playing nor the dogs, a smile is painted on his face at the idea of some time alone with her, quiet, as when they made love in the bathtub, her moans finally loud and clear and free to run, or that time he had her on Robert's desk, because she had asked him, to spite him, and he obliged, furious at the idea of him having her.

He remembers slipping his hands on her and torturing her with pleasure, while she'd clench onto him, wrapping her legs around him, claiming him, calling him. Her remembers the way her voice melts and twitches right before shutting in silence, when she's about to come, and breathes in ever so softly.

And he always found so much sweetness in her roars stopping, in her aggression coming to a rest, right before she arches and glows with bliss.

He remembers her moans and her giggles and the way her voice feels dense and sweet when he licks her.  _She's wine, she goes to my head, and she's bitter but it's an acquired taste._ He feels sick and on a high all at the same time.

And when he opens the bedroom door and sees her with Lancel, it takes a moment, just one.

And from the high the roller-coaster turns and he falls in the pit.

 

*

 

It's raining. But he doesn't feel it on his cheeks or head.

He realizes it's raining when it gets harder to walk because his jeans are soaked and shivers melt down his spine, spiralling cold. 

He can't feel anything and he knows he should.

_Anger? Sadness? Grief? Jealousy? There is all of that, mixed up badly, like all colors combined from paint end up giving a greyish brown with no distinguishable brightness and no hue that recalls them singularly._

The only thing that stands out is a pinch, a little pinch, of something sharp and tempting.

_Relief._

But he can't get why he would feel it and he's sure that it means he perceives it wrongly and that it's something else. Probably it is just a mask, a relict of another emotion.

_Maybe my mind broke, maybe I went insane, maybe that's it – I lost it._

He hadn’t even faced her, he had just closed the door and walked away.

_Relief._

As if he has lost chains tight on his wrists.  _… but that makes no sense. My hands make no sense without her, they don't hold her, they don't wet her, they don't run through her... our... her hair. Have I lost my chains or have I become crippled?_

He can’t understand, he can't realize.

He knows it's real, because he left and walked under the rain, he knows it's real, because his stomach is twisted and he had to stop himself from puking in his own mouth, he knows it's real because his eyes stopped stinging. The tears came out.

His head is a drumming mess, dim and din.

He  _knows_ it's real but it doesn't  _feel_ real, because it makes no sense.

Not her. She would never.

She had liked, _loved, liked_ , Rhaegar, true, she had seemed to... fancy Robert, the first times they met, before he showed his true colors,  _but one thing is a crush and another... laying with a man, with another. You can say fucking, Jaime, for fucks sake, that's what you saw. They were fucking. That whor- she's not a whore, don't call her that. Don't._

_Lancel... we, she, we, she used to mock him for his pimples and lanky figure._

_Maybe there is a sense, a reason, a point._

_You gave her all these years. For what, Jaime? For what? For love. Love? You call it that? It's love, it's pure, it's the only pure thing I've ever done or felt._

_Look at me, I'm still the boy who runs from everything._

And he walks to the restaurant, not willing to eat, but needing Tyrion. Needing the sharpness, needing the pain, because Tyrion would pluck and plunder and plunge into the wound, open its edges and hems and dig blood out of it, examining the aching and pulsing fresh, raw flesh inside.

And he needs that because it comes from love.

It's pain, it's picking, and yet now it feels true.

_Truer than …_

He walks in puddles that wet him up to half the calves, and he feels the sleek wetness reach his stomach with cold liquid hands. For an instant, he seems to smell meadowsweet and elderflower –  _like the ones at the summer house, in the gardens, we had an old wishing well and at ten you asked me to touch you there, on the grass, and I drove into your softness over a bridge on a river, and the sweet water ran over your thighs and we were children, and everything tasted like sugar, I took you over that bridge again at twenty, my cock sliding into you and your nails clenching the stones and the grass, your laugh felt real, it felt real... when did it stop being real?_

Then it was just the scent of rain. 

_As bitter as yours._

“Sweet cheeks!”

Jaime flinches, raises his eyes. Theon Greyjoy, again.

He looks dry, though, and Jaime realizes then he has arrived to the restaurant and that there is a hood over the door Greyjoy is smoking under. White smoke runs between his shiny white teeth and he looks like a shark.

A very beautiful shark, though.

_Prettier than Lancel, for sure._

He opens his mouth but nothing comes out, just a low, hissed sigh.

“Sweet cheeks? - Theon Greyjoy asks again, worried, and he moves closer to him, trying to turn his smirk into a sympathetic grin – Hey, you look like you just got dumped.”

“...somewhat.”, he lets out, weakly.

Theon blinks, “Fuck. Uh. I'm... sorry? Umh... - he frowns – Cigarette?”

Jaime nods and walks slowly under the hood with him.

The scent of cigarettes hits his nostrils and the slow drumming of the rain tickles puddles of azure darkness on the ground.

His lips quiver and Theon places a cigarette between them and lights it up.

The brief spark paints his face of a sad orange and Theon gulps dryly, “You know, there are plenty more fish in the sea, no need to bum yourself over a specific one.”

Jaime's eyes shine.

“She was more than that. She made me complete.”

“Don't they all? – the other scoffs – It's a plug and socket matter.”

Jaime wants to tell him off, but the bitter hint in his voice makes it clear that Theon is trying to convince himself more than him.

“Would your girlfriend agree on that?”

Theon snorts, “My what?”

“Red hair, cute smile, pillow-y, voluptuous breasts? - his lips twitch up in a smirk – Tyrion's student?”

Theon squints his eyes, “You mean...  _Sansa_ ?”

“I suppose. - He shrugs, weakly – I don't recall Tyrion telling me the name.”

Theon shakes his head, “Sansa and I are not... wait a second, what kind of relationship do you have with professor Lannister?”

“I'm his older brother.”

“... now I see where his self-esteem issues come from. - Theon shakes his head again and gives a smug smirk and a low whistle – But enlighten me... why did professor Lannister discuss me and Sansa Stark's relationship status?”

Jaime finds himself paling.

“I asked... I inquired, about you.”

Theon laughs, amused, with a certain spark in his eyes.

A sleek, wet gleam.

“I can distinguish which team people play for. - he mocks him, gently, caressing the drenched cotton of Jaime's sweater – For this time, I won't ask further. - he seems to promise – Do you want me to go inside and call your brother?”

Jaime's lips quiver as he stares at Theon's dark eyes and hair for a long time, how they look like aqueous shadows. 

“Will you really drop the topic?”

“Only for this time. - Theon winks, sucking the last bit of flavour and heat out of his cigarette and throwing it on the soaked pavement – In honor of your heartbreak.”

Jaime nods, now a bit weaker, while he clears his throat and tries to find his voice again, but it got buried somewhere under the tension and the defeat. He remembers nights of low fires and endlessly pained pleasure, where his lips were bruised with kisses and his voice hoarse and hers all groans and moans.

There are whole worlds crumbling in his head. It has all turned to ashes.

Jaime clenches his hands and finds his eyes hurting again, pulsing with the need to cry – but nothing comes out, they pull but no tear slips out.

His hands run to his pockets, feeling something sitting in them uncomfortably and, when he fishes it out, he finds a handkerchief. Cotton.

Who even uses those anymore?

It's all full of blood and he remembers Brienne again, how she pressed on him, how she helped him, and a weak, dark sensation of warmth sits on his stomach.

He can't remember the last time Cersei helped him with something that was not a troubling erection, and even then it wasn't exactly about helping  _him_ .

“Are we planning on making a habit of me coming to save you? - Tyrion smiles, with a tenderly mortified expression in his eyes that clashes with the smirk on his lips, he's nervous, Jaime can tell – I am not exactly Prince Charming material.”

Jaime tries to smile but fails, the corners of his mouth are too heavy for him to keep them up.

“And yet. - Jaime chuckles bitterly – You try to help me all the same.”

“I try, key word.”

“I make a lousy older brother, don't I?”

“I make a lousy any-order son? - Tyrion tries to lift his spirits with a mix of self-deprecation and genuine care – We match!”

Jaime sighs profoundly, rolling his eyes and closing them, breathing in the chilly blue evening air.

“I... don't know how to say it.”

Tyrion raises his eyes and gives him a soft look, his mouth, though, is hidden by the beard and the shadows and Jaime can't see his lips.

“You don't have to. - he replies – We're going home.”

“I... don't feel like... she's probably there.”

“My home. This way. - Tyrion says then, this time wiggling his eyebrows with a childish amusement he hasn't shown in years – You're gonna live the Gulliver life style for a while.”

Jaime snorts, shaking his head, “I would scold you for speaking this way of yourself but I feel like...”

“Lilliput everywhere except where it counts, then it's Brobdingnag.”

“...exactly.”, Jaime groans and raises his eyes to the sky but he's smiling with the tiny relief he can afford.

His chest hurts and burns, heavy, but there is something soft and nice in Tyrion's hand as it grabs his.

He remembers the winter days, when snow fell, throwing snowballs and building castles of soft coldness, and he remembers the first days of school, accompanying Tyrion and coming to take him – their age gap made it so that they were always in different schools, but Jaime always made sure to come to him... Cersei found it a waste of time, but then again …

_Ah, yes, Cersei again._

_How can I wash you off my mind?_

_I need bleach. I need blindness. I need gasoline and fire._

He has missed holding his brother's hand. It doesn't fit nicely in his own, as if they were sewed for one another –  _like Cersei's and mine_ – and it is uncomfortably hot, but it is good all the same.

_Sometimes good is better than perfect_ , Jaime finds himself thinking, while munching his inner cheek.

“Do you have a washing machine?”

“Do I look like I am some kind of laundress? - Tyrion mocks, raising an eyebrow – Yes, I own a washing machine.”

Jaime then moves his other hand nervously through his pants pockets.

“Why? - Tyrion asks – Did you just have a hausfrau enlightening calling on the road to Damascus?” 

Jaime just snickers sourly, but his fingers caress the wrinkled handkerchief. He can feel the softness of it, except in the points where the blood has dried.

“More like, I forgot to do a small errand.”

Tyrion turns to his brother, his eyes gleaming, curious and lively. A cheeky smile on his face.

“Really now.”

“Sort of.”

“Does it have to do with Theon Greyjoy? - he asks out of the blue and Jaime looks at him, questioning – He said he had to refuse your advances.”

“That guy has a certain charm and aplomb. - Jaime mumbles to himself – You couldn't blame me if I ...”

“I wouldn't judge. I mean … - he seems to want to make a comment, one of his sassy, witty remarks, but then he seems to remember or realize the situation at hand and shuts up, gulping it down dryly – I just asked.”

_What did you actually want to say? Given your taste in women, this is an improvement? Is it the break up trauma? After all, the only woman you’ve ever fucked is your own photocopy? Are you a repressed homosexual? Your hair always looked too amazing for a straight guy? Which joke am I missing?_

“Mostly, I found out him and Sansa are not an item.”

Tyrion's ears become red and Jaime chuckles, slightly amused.

“Seems like you gave her taste in men too little credit. - he observes – She doesn't seem to like the bisexual libertine.”

“That doesn't mean she'll like the fun-sized Quasimodo.”

“You have your own charm.”

“The malformed kind?”, Tyrion barks back with a cheeky laugh.

Jaime's lips bend in a smile. “There is no crime in dreaming.”

_I had dreamt all my life._

_I've only been awake for some hours and everything is grey and a wasteland. You're the first real good thing._

_I dreamt of her all along._

_And now like darkness creeping from the corners with the coming of the night, memories of her unkindness, of her words, they keep coming to me, all at once, they drip down my neck and press the air out of my lungs._

“I have this theory. - Tyrion chuckles – If you never expect anything good, you don't get disappointed, and if good things happen, it's a nice surprise.”

“Hm. - Jaime mumbles on that, sucking his lips – You know, from someone as creative as you, that's a tragic statement.”

Tyrion shakes his head and, as they arrive to the building of his apartment, he turns to his brother.

“I... may have not... really worked on my organizing skills since childhood.”

War flashbacks of the hours spent trying to organize Tyrion's room before their father scolded him or trying to help him to find something he had lost run through Jaime's brain, wild and unstoppable as a furious harras of mustangs.

For what he remembers, Jaime hadn't visited Tyrion's new apartment in a long while, mostly due to different schedules and how they both preferred to meet out for food or in other places, plus Cersei doesn't …  _she's everywhere._

_Will I have to flay my whole self to get rid of her? Is she under my skin? Like bones or pus? Is she under my soul like the clay core of my heart?_

_How do I wash her away from me? How deep will I have to scrub to get rid of the ghost of her touches? And from the spectre, tattooed between my ribs, of her voice and how it bent wet and obscene while Lancel fucked her?_

He clenches on the handkerchief, without knowing why, without noticing.

It feels soft. It feels warm.

Tyrion doesn't ask if he is fine, it's clear he's not and he opens the door to his apartment.

“It's... not... that messy.”, Jaime forces himself to say.

_It is._

The apartment is nice, at least it seems so under the pile of clothes, books, papers, pens distributed around as if they had rained from the ceiling, there are literal towers of books and papers put under, next to and over empty mugs still smelling like coffee.

In one corner of the wide living room there is a long couch that curves and proceeds on the other wall, shaped like an “L”, on which there is a forest of books, pullovers, pillows and museum tickets. Above the sofa spreads a bookshelf and another two wide ones – from the bottom to the top – occupy the walls where the sofa ends. Then there is a small coffee table, also covered in books and papers.

Jaime's look drifts to the small kitchen, there is no sign of dirty dishes, but just a little crowd of tea and coffee mugs. On the table, there are some bowls with fruit and a triplet of bottles of wine – Jaime suspects them not to be the only ones in the house, but he doesn't inquire.

Among his siblings, he is the only one who's not so fond of drinking.

He likes wine, he drinks a bit too much of it, but compared to his sister and brother, he is a teetotal friar.

As he stops looking at what to fix and stares at what is under, Jaime feels guilt's hands squeezing his heart dripping.

Some items are customized to Tyrion's height, like the sink or the french-door oven. A couple of armchairs and the sofa are easy to adapt to, but he can see the table and the chairs of the kitchen are average height, and so the bar, and there are small stools or micro stairs in the corners, as if they have waited to be used and lost all hope.

Only then Jaime realizes he has never been in that apartment before.

“Let me guess, you don't often invite colleagues over.”, he chuckles, sour and dark, feeling ashamed of himself.

Tyrion just lets out one of his enigmatic expressions, between amused and sad.

“Oberyn and I usually go to his place, he's filthy rich.”

“Richer than us?”

“Than me for sure.”

Jaime nods, sucking his lips, “And... -  _what was his other friend's name?_ \- Bronn?”

“Bar. - Tyrion frowns but smiles – Is it so apocalyptical?”

“No. - Jaime lies – But I may take care of it while you're at work tomorrow.”

“Cleaning lady for free! - Tyrion laughs – What a win!”

“Shame I don't have a sexy maid costume.”

Tyrion chuckles, “Just be sure not to throw away anything important.”

Jaime rolls his eyes to the ceiling, “Damn, I’ve been organizing a huge bonfire of official documents and essays!”

Tyrion shakes his head, “Are you sure I can leave you alone tomorrow? If you need me to be here …”

_Please, stay._

Jaime's lips try weakly to smile.

His corners tremble.

“Don't worry, I'll be okay.”

When he goes to sleep, he doesn't dream of Cersei. Just weird, shapeless shadows, one that barks, one that feels warm but sits uncomfortably on his chest and face, pressing, and a last one, that dances like a blue flame in the wind, neither close nor far, just there, dancing, as if she were waiting for him.

Like a stool in a lonely man's house.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to thank again to everyone who has commented and liked ;_; you were all really sweet and I know I may be very awkward in replying but all your comments meant a lot to me! So thank you again <3

3.

 

Sansa Stark has gotten used to a good number of things over the years: people assuming she’s a cat person instead of a dog person, the pitiful looks of mercy and slight amusement she gets when she claims to still believe that one day her prince charming will come, Arya mimicking her whenever they fight, her father's look of tiredness whenever any of her siblings fight and, dulcis in fundo, Theon Greyjoy sighing heavily when Robb looks away.

Theon has been her brother's best friend since she can remember.

And quite smitten with him since then too.

When Robb took a small flat in the city to cut his daily commute to university, he immediately asked Theon to move in with him. And Theon accepted in a heartbeat.

Two years after, when Sansa finished high school too, she was very hesitant when her father suggested she'd also go to live with Robb.

Her mother was outright against it, suggesting Theon would seduce her – at which her father scoffed, saying Robb would never allow it and that while Theon needed to put his head on his shoulders there is a lot of difference between being a bad boy and a bad man – but Sansa's doubt was way different: she was sure in two years of cohabitation Theon confessed to Robb.

She was sure they would have both realized by then they have been circling around each other like dumb sharks since years.

Turns out, Sansa is an optimist and had overestimated the boys’ self-awareness and courage greatly.

Theon is also that particular brand of sour that keeps fucking around anyway and Robb … Robb would never make the first move, he is too sure Theon is straight and uninterested.

Sansa scoffs, “Tell him.”

“Let it go. - Theon mumbles, crossing his arms, annoyed and embarrassed, shrugging and hiding a bit in his shoulders – I have nothing to tell.”

Sansa rolls her eyes to the ceiling.

“You are so stubborn.”

Theon gives her a glare, then lets out a little cocky smirk, “And you need to stop living your romantic life vicariously.”

Sansa sucks her lips and looks away sadly, and then Theon feels a pang of guilt stabbing through him. He sighs and moves closer to her, his voice now all soft and silky, “I'm sorry... I didn't mean to.”

Sansa nods.

“I'm just not ready yet.”

“It's absolutely understandable. - Theon shakes his head and sucks his lips – I was a major jerk.”

She puts a hand on his thigh, playing with the little rough lines on the fabric of his black jeans. Then she relaxes and puts her legs on his, entwining in pristine white intimacy.

“You're right, though.”, she admits.

Theon frowns and takes Sansa's other hand in his own, caressing it gently. 

His voice comes out low, calm as the night sea, and he mumbles, while massaging the hand, “You know... a funny thing happened.”

“Hm?”

“You know... professor Lannister's brother was sure we were dating.”

“You and me? - Sansa lets out a laugh – That would be weird.”

Theon chuckles, “Yes, but like... why does professor Lannister even wonder about who you're dating.”

“I'm his student, he probably just feared you'd break up with me and make me mess up my thesis. - she mumbles, moving her legs slightly on Theon's as to ask him to massage those too, and he obliges with a tender, just fakely-upset sigh – Or maybe he wants to make sure I'm not going to wind up pregnant before he offers me that assistant job I candidated for.”

“What? His assistant? - Theon blinks – Are you serious?”

She seems confused, “Why not? He's always been quite a gentleman with me and I’ve always wanted to continue my academic career in his subject, plus... - she pokes Theon on the nose – Weren't you the one who gave me that borderline misogynistic... - she coughs and then tries to imitate a manly voice –  _Women with a brain like yours are so rare, Sansa, really put it to good use!_ ”

Theon becomes beet-red, his Adam’s apple jumping.

His voice comes out all hoarse, “Oh, cmon, you know I don't actually... think that stuff.”

“ _I_ know. - Sansa pokes him again – But, rest assured, if I had never met your dad, I would think you're a jerk.”

Theon shrugs, letting out something like a groan.

“Anyway, you can find a better teacher to work with.”

“I like him. - she laughs, then smiles – He is funny, he is passionate about the subject and he never judged me like an airhead or frivolous.”

Theon raises an eyebrow, questioning, but doesn't add anything.

“He is also a bit of a trick.”

She stiffens.

“That's a rumour.”

“If you want to think so.”

She looks down, something inside her twisting, sick and cold.

 

*

 

Jaime yaws, waking up from the first real night of rest he has had in... weeks? Months? Years? He is not sure. He scratches his stomach, shivering at the sensation of just muscle and skin under his fingers.

When he stands up and looks in the mirror of the dresser next to the bed, he shivers.

Were his cheeks always so hollowed out? His skin always so dull? His eyes look like huge bulbs and the flesh around is so thin for a moment Jaime can picture them rolling out of his skull. He shivers and shakes his head.

He rubs his eyes with his palm, as if he could rub away that thought together with the sleep.

“Sleeping beauty!”

He looks up again and finds his brother, leaning on the doorstep, wearing a cornea-gouging highlighter yellow never mind the bollocks t-shirt that is way too long for him, while sipping from a mug something that smells like …

“Coffee?”, Tyrion suggests, handing him a second cup.

Jaime nods weakly and gives a croaking “thanks” before starting to sip. It's a bit too sweet, but he doesn't complain.

“I have to go to a meeting soon. - Tyrion informs him, while staring at him, checking the slight stubble, the ruffled bedhead – Did you sleep well?”

Jaime nods, “Weirdly, I did.”

Tyrion forces himself not to inquire further.

“So. - he sucks his lips – Do you feel like staying here for some days?”

Jaime seems tempted to refuse.

_What if Cersei comes to search for me at home? I don't feel like meeting her. What if she wants to meet me? I don't want to. But what if she wants to?_

_What if she needs me?_

_What if she decides I'm with another woman? I don't owe her any explanation. She slept with another man. I don't know. Maybe I misunderstood. How do you misunderstand a cock deep inside a moaning, writhing paradise of skin? Maybe he violated her. Yeah, believe that._

“Please. - he replies, his voice hoarse – Can I maybe give you something for rent?”

“Only if you don't plan to drop the job. - Tyrion scoffs – Because then daddy will cut your allowance and ouchies that's gonna hurt you at first.”

“Was it so hard?”

“The first months. - Tyrion shrugs – Or so it seemed, in comparison, we're still damn privileged.”

“I'll accept the socialism talk only if there's a croissant included.”

Tyrion lets out something between a snort and a groan, before realizing Jaime was serious.

“I have some muffins, if you're hungry.”

“Muffins?”, Jaime frowns.

“Homemade. - Tyrion explains, trotting then to the kitchen and returning to his brother with a small cake dome – Here.”

Jaime snorts and raises an eyebrow, incredulous, “Don't tell me, wait. - he pats his lips with a finger – For sure they’re not yours, you may cook well enough to survive, but baking? Too much patience, too little improvisation. - he mumbles – Maybe some of your girl friends? No, seems too personal. - he sucks his lips – Wait, is some old hag in the building hitting on you?”

Tyrion groans, “Oh, yeah, there is actually a queue, you know, there has been a tragic, great death toll on lapdogs lately and all the fifty year olds decided to kill two birds with one stone and get a two-in-one deal.”, he claimed, smug, just to then roll his eyes to the ceiling.

Jaime breathes out and lets a low, amused laugh slip from his lips.

“At least it’s pet and sexual object and not pet and slave like in Planet of the Apes.”

“Sometimes, I remember your taste in movies and realize you’re the pretty one only for the sake of the equilibrium of the universe.”

“Are you telling me you wouldn't be into pet-play?”

“Depends on who I am with, I suppose, can't exclude anything.”, Tyrion admits, swaying his head slightly.

Jaime squints his eyes, “Bettie Page.”

Tyrion wrinkles his noses and shakes his head, “Hm, no.”

“Dita Von Teese?”

“Too dark. - he shrugs, smirking – Something more... light-hearted.”

Jaime raises his eyebrows, “Sans...”

“Don't you dare.”

Jaime sighs, rolling his eyes willingly dramatically, with a little grin, “Little brothers: pettish and prickly.”

Tyrion mocks it, “Older brothers: plain evil.”

“Hey, I'm the middle sibling.”

“I stick with the theory the oldest is the last one exiting the womb. - Tyrion claims – But in any case, we can just wait for Cersei dear to sell you her primogeniture for a bowl of lentil stew.”

_I came into the world holding her heel._

_Right._

_Her ankles, I used to kiss them, a thousand years ago, when her hair was still droplets of golden sunshine and not daggers in my chest. Her feet, she liked me kissing them, passing my tongue through her toes, sucking them, she liked pressing them on my face and I loved the idea of serving her._

_Even like that, even for an instant._

_I came into the world holding onto her. But she didn't hold onto me, did she?_

“Jaime?”

Tyrion's voice shakes him and he returns.

“Uh. Yeah. Muffins.”

Tyrion frowns, wondering if his brother has forgotten the long piece of conversation in the middle or if he is just trying to deviate topics, he takes mental no te and proceeds, without explicit reserve, “Taste them.”

Jaime seems doubtful, his spoiled soul is more into everything fancy or careless starvation, but he attacks it with his teeth and, munching slowly, much like a child trying to understand if he likes the new weird food their mother is introducing them to, he works on it slowly in his mouth before swallowing it.

“It's yummy.”, he declares, sinking his jaws into it voraciously a second time.

Tyrion has a mischievous smile on when he says, “Brienne made them.”

Jaime almost chokes himself on it.

“That thing bakes?”

_And … like this?_

_She looks like her arms could lift a tank. Not that the thought makes me... I mean. God, she could hold me down in bed so easily if she wanted. Weird weird weird. Why am I even thinking about that burly Valkyrie?_

… _she has a delicate side, though, apparently. Though it's weird to imagine her with a soft pink apron and delicate hands, mixing cookies._

“ _That thing_ is an amazing teacher. - Tyrion says, sitting on the bed next to Jaime and stealing a muffin from the dome – And, despite you puerile behaviour last time, she asked how you were.”

_Like shit._

_I spent my life cherishing and watering a blooming love and I just found out it is simply rotting between the cracks in my ribs. My care has turned into a sour tumour taking space through my marrow, ready to crack my spine from inside out._

_The green fire that kept me warm has burnt me down._

_I'm the glimmering ghost of something I built my life on._

_So, yeah, like shit._

Jaime chuckles, “How kind of her. And she made you muffins to corrupt you into gossiping?”

Tyrion shakes his head, “No, because she saw me sad after your visit. - he goes down from the bed, munching still – I'm going to the faculty, bye.”

“Wait... dressed like that?”

Tyrion looks at his shirt.

“I'll put a black jacket over. Kids love jackets and casual shirts.”

“Kids or one kid in particular?”

Tyrion trips on his own breath, almost choking and lets out a hoarse and coughed, “She's not a kid, she's well above twenty.”

Jaime raises his eyebrows, wiggling them, a devilish, trickster smile wide on his lips.

“I didn't drop any names.”

 

*

 

Sansa smiles, sitting on the stone bench in the garden in front of the faculty department, letting her legs swing and dance slightly under the sweet sun – it rained the night before and now everything is still tender with the green scent of rain and the air is fresh and the drops of sunlight are kind like sugar dew. And she loves it.

White and lilac bellflowers have sprouted, like light-feeted, graceful paint stains between the slick, shiny green leaves, and nothing reminds her of spring as much as the softness of shy flowers.

It's her favourite season, because it’s light shivers down your skin delicately and slowly, no summer violet sun to whip it and burn it, no cold winter leaving you frozen under your blood. 

She closes the eyes and breathes in the honeyed taste of the breeze.

When she opens them again, she sees him smiling at her.

She smiles at him too, and her hand unconsciously moves from her side, so to let him sit next to her on the stone bench.

It's not cold marble that would bring shivers down her spine, it's a warm river stone, with soft moss on the legs, and porous on top, which keeps it never too warm nor too cold. And, yet, when Tyrion sits next to her, she feels something similar to a heat wave riding her hips and melting in the pool of her stomach.

He has always been so soothing to her – he had defended her thesis when another professor deemed it “childish” and “too literature-focused”, he has always complimented her intelligence, which is not something most people do, and she remembers when Joffrey would taunt her out of university or send his friends to mock her, how he always barked him silent and protected her.

He was smaller than her, but when he was between her and Joffrey, she had felt shielded completely.

_He has been a cape against the frost._

_Hail can't touch me when he's around. And bruises don't bloom under my skin._

But Theon's comment … it sat wrongly on her heart.  _A trick?_

She had never observed professor Lannister sexually.

Of course, she guessed he has sex. And she feels the smouldering iron of guilt pulsing through her now, finding herself basically desexualizing him,  _is it because he's a little person? Was I unawarely seeing him as a child? Did I find him less manly due to that?_

_What does that say about me?_

He frowns, but smiles, “Something troubling you?”

She stiffens and jolts, “Ah, umh, nothing, I'm... - _an excuse, an excuse, I need an excuse –_ Having a lot of difficulties in finding new bibliography, that's all.”

“Hm.”

He furrows his eyebrows and she finds herself observing him.

_He has hair of old gold and sweet coal, an eye as green as sour kiwis and lime zest, another as black as the calm dark abyss of starry nights._

_He's all mismatched and yet._

_Were he of average height would he have women claim those traits unique instead? If he looked like Alexander the Great would anyone complain or find him odd?_

_He's not beautiful. At all. But I don't feel like he lacks harmony._

_He stirs me through peace._

_But.... prostitutes, really? Wouldn't he prefer to find someone special? Nobody would care about body if they loved someone, right?_

“Don't be so upset. - he tells her, with a tremor in his voice, as if he's trying to sound more cheerful than he is – Know what, wait here, I’ll go back home and find something for you, hm?”

“Wait here?”

Tyrion frowns and nods to himself, “Or you can go home, I'll bring you the books tomorrow, if you prefer not to...”

“I can come with.”, she says, simply.

She's not sure why or how it came out of her. And so transparent and easy.

She feels a hard knot in her throat and gulps it down forcefully, while the drum of her heart seizes her head.

_Is this inappropriate?_

_Why would I do it now of all times, even? After that talk?_

Tyrion seems nervous, “My apartment is a bit messy.”

_He's saying that because he sees it's out of line, please, Sansa, tell him you understand and don't know what came into you. Tell him that._

_What if he thinks you're trying to gain his favour in improper ways? What if he …_

“I don't mind messy. - she tries to laugh, and it's as glimmery and shimmery as the singing of a river – I have four siblings, of which three are brothers. - Sansa smiles then, her shyness painting cheeks pink, but fondness filling her voice – I don't want to make you go back only to return for nothing or come two days in a row for me, please.”

Tyrion sucks his lips and nods, slowly, as if he needs to digest the idea.

“Sure. - he says, giving a nervous smile that trembles down soon, but which he keeps up for her – Come, you'll tell me where you got stuck while we’re on the road.”

The breeze brings up the scent of lilac flowers, and Sansa raises her head, staring at them, and how they crowd together, like kittens in the cold, finding comfort in contact.

_Never alone, never abandoned._ Her skin feels tight and hard from inside.

“Flowers?”, Tyrion asks, turning, raising an eyebrow.

She nods, smiling wide, “It's such a pretty colour, don't you think?”

“Lilac?”

Her look is tender, soft.  _It calms me, it reminds me of the wisterias dad used to take down, cover in sugar and give to Arya and me to eat, or the violet candies that granddad had – they smelled like perfume, I always felt like some medieval lady having them._

_And when he bruised me, I used to repeat to myself it was the colour of tenderness._

_And when he beat me, I used to hold onto that feeling._

_It's all I had._

“You don't like them? - she asks with a hint of sadness in her voice, then catching herself – I suppose men don't think about these things. You must find me so girly.”

He frowns, but grins.

“That's not necessarily a bad thing. - he muses – And, secret to say between us, my brother also has a soft spot for flowers.”

She lowers her eyes but sucks her lips and smiles, cheeks darker, eyes shinier.

“Do you have a favourite colour?”

“Red, I suppose.”

She looks all satisfied and her eyes gleam. “That's such a romantic colour.”, she says, and her voice sounds almost as if she's singing.

And why would she? He can't guess.

She probably can't know either.

And he's tempted to tell her it's because it's the colour of wine, to play it off as funny.

And he's tempted to tell her it's because it's the colour of her hair, to finally let it out.

And more than anything he's tempted to confess to her it's because it's the first colour he saw and the only one he can remember of his mother – spilled, and wet, and warm – and everywhere, and it feels like home.

The only home he ever had: one he ruined himself.

And he's tempted to tell her all of that, but he doesn't, because why would he expose his raw flesh, skinned and bare, to her? She doesn't deserve to see the horror he is.

And she would leave if she did.

He can't afford to be rejected and he can't afford to hurt her either.

So he stays silent and frozen, like a chees piece waiting to be moved but, for now, useless.

He walks as quickly as he can, huffing a bit, just because he doesn’t want to ask her too slow down, her and her damn long legs. She's taller than most girls and he has to force his eyes down and a quick conversation not to linger on her legs and on the thought of them crossing against his back, as he … 

And he's angry, because of how perfect she is, because _something so perfect will never want me_ .

And he feels humiliated by how quickly he has to go, until she slows down, almost automatically, and he turns up to her and she talks about her thesis, but he can't hear her.

She's walking slow enough for her that she risks to trip.

And he feels his own heart stumbling against his ribs, between them, then fall to the ground.

He feels light.

And he doesn't mind having to look up to see her.

“So … - she asks, playing with her hands – What do you think about the chanson de Roland chapter?”

Tyrion's eyes slip from hers and linger on her lips. He parts his own.

And swallows, cursing his height.

If I were Jaime, I could grab her waist, bend my head slightly and kiss her.

If I were Jaime, she'd accept it.

“It was brilliant. - he smiles, sadly, but forces himself to seem amused – As always.”

“Now you're flattering me!”

“Something I never do is flattering people on their intellectual work. - Theon grants – You can ask around.”

“You have a reputation of always replying very sarcastically at exams, but you never did with me.”

“You never said anything stupid enough to deserve my mocking.”

Sansa shakes her head.

She feels like smiling until the uncomfortable corners and sharp edges of something sitting on her stomach scratch her from the inside and feel heavy.

She swallows.

“About Theon.”

Tyrion's voice comes out strangled, “What of him?”

“You don't seem to like him much. - she plays with her fingers, squeezing them lightly – I know he may have a bad reputation, but he's kind.”

Tyrions seems to sweat, he turns to her and moves his hand as to grabs hers. But it falls empty.

He gives up the idea, lets go of the hope.

His elbow feels like lead and concrete.

And her hands look like silk-covered marble he can't afford to touch.

Too delicate, too pure. For him to dare.

He finds his throat swallowing a hanging knot of plumbeous steel.

And it's his sister's voice he hears, ringing in his head, heavy and metallic like a slap over a child's skull, and it's her hand he feels still against it, and her mocking anger louder and louder with every instant.

“I apologize. - he does not want to, but he has to, and he frowns and finds words hard to spell, his tongue heavy and swollen and the struggle chokes him – I did not mean to offend your... - his voice betrays the question he dares not to ask – Friend?”

And he is not sure if Sansa got why.

Probably not.

“Brother, more like. - she curls her mouth's corners up in a little satisfied smirk – In law soon too, I hope.”

At that Tyrion bends his head, sucking his neck in and shakes his head as if he has licked a sour citrus and he furrows his eyebrows, “Theon Greyjoy and your sister?”

Sansa realizes she does not have the permission to out him and she nods very quickly and very embarrassed. 

Tyrion blinks slowly, taking that in and can't help but smile slightly.

He's still not Jaime. But there is no Jaime in sight.

And while he can't hope, he can hurt less. And that's always been his goal.

Wine, hookers, smokes: it all numbs it down.

Until he can't see his father's face or hear his sister's voice or feel his mother's wet bloodstains.

“Well, now that I know you won't be distracted from your studies, let's think about which essays I can give you together, shall we?”

“Do you have anything on French tournament etiquette and songs?”

 

*

 

Jaime curses his way through the umpteenth pile of books and papers he has to move to reach the surface of the furniture in order to dust it. His back is also screaming, and halfway through, for the first time, he realizes how Tyrion must feel all the time he's invited to his home.

He sighs his whole way through cleaning the apartment, finding himself more and more calm with each zone. Things find their fitting spaces, squares cave in in one another, drawers welcome stacks of papers and corners meet in order.

_Everything fits. Nothing is misplaced or lost._

And for a moment he is also not.

_But my place was with you, wasn't it? We fit together so well. Pieces of the same puzzle._

_You sheathed and held me like a glove, your lips matched mine and you felt so small in my arms, perfectly fitting into the void between my arms and chest._

_I don't want you anymore._

_The idea of holding you to my_ _chest... I'm sure the pain I feel would turn your skin into a smouldering, branding iron and you'd burn my ribs and heart to ashes and cooked flesh._

_I don't want you anymore._

_But do I have a place then?_

_Where is it? How can I match someone else?_

_Have I lost everything? Is that it? Not only a love, but the real one, the only one that would mean having a home? Is that what has happened to me now?_

_Have I become placeless?_

He breathes in her absence, and he can feel his own lungs for once, again. But then, sickly, he feels the void she can't fill crushing down on him.

And he gets swallowed by all the places she doesn't fill.

And his lungs dry into a desert, breathing all the air they can't share.

_She was supposed to be half of my soul and I half of hers._

_But maybe she was all of mine and mine was crumbles she lost along the way._

_Where am I without you? But where was I with you?_

_Where was I?_

He squints his eyes, squeezing them tight – and red darkness comes, thick as a veil under his eyelids.

And he stays there for a moment, parting his lips, breathing slowly and then biting them, taking it all in, eyes closed, and then he feels the tears pool at the side of his eyes.

He's crying. Again.

And he can't help but smile.

He feels the corners of his mouth rising, nervously, and his eyes sting, but it's coming out, it's coming out,  _finally_ .

All the sadness leaks away.

He laughs.

He's crying all of her away: her gold, her rot, her love, her lies. She washes down and goes away.

He rubs his chin dry, as he did after eating her out, when come stained his stubble.

_I may be broken but I'm not unfixable._

_I may be a dock work mess, but you were not an essential screw._

He breathes in again, feeling freedom take away the burden from inside him, lifting his muscles and hunger; he passes a hand through his long hair, the tears stopping only when he laughs louder.

Jaime feels himself returning, slowly, with chest ache and his skin pins and needles. He gives a quick glance to the apartment before letting out a “Oh fuck it, I'm taking a walk” and grabbing a coat.

The breeze feels good through his hair. Jaime shakes them, closing his eyes and smelling in the scent.

Nothing could ruin it.

_Almost nothing._

On her shoulders there is a heavy bag filled with books, and she's looking around herself, almost contemplating the road. _She's a funny one_ , he thinks, _it's just a fucking road._

She is definitely going to the university.

_She's going to work. If I ignore her, she won't stop to talk to me._

_We don't have to talk._

But then Jaime feels a warmth, a foreign, adrenaline filled electricity.  _She is a thrill._

_Ungraceful as she is, she's more thunder than a shiver._

… _but annoying her is fun. Sort of irresistible._

“Well, well! - he laughs, cheerful – If isn't it the lovechild of Brunhilde and Hulk!”

Brienne turns, already annoyed, but when her glance meets his, she seems to blink and soften. Just for an instant, then her throat clenches and she stares at him strictly.

“So much money spent on good schools, and you couldn't afford to learn some manners.”

Jaime's eyes gleam playfully.

“Will you punish me for it?”, he asks, his glance brushing up and down her body.

His pitch is teasing, but not with malice.

There is a mischievous heat in how he mocks her this time, but neither of them can exactly decode it or place it; it gets buried under one's denial and the other's self-defence.

And yet, that shade, even unheard, sweetens Brienne's reaction, unconsciously, as she sighs and groans, but takes no offence.

“Has anyone ever told you you can be awfully childish?”

Jaime grins and shrugs, hands in his pockets, “Has anyone ever _not_ told me?”

Brienne shakes her head but a shadow of a smile caresses her lips.

“I'm glad the impression is shared. - she says – But, unfortunately, I'm not a kindergarten teacher, so …”

He moves closer to her, almost springing. “No, but I'm  somewhat actually curious, are you a magnet for masochists? Because you sure would look in your prime with a whip or flogger to slam people with.”

Brienne swallows, incredulous, “Do you often imagine people in insultingly inappropriate situations?”

“Well, there is nothing shameful in sex. - he shrugs, then eyes her – You're not frigid, are you? - he sounds cocky and wicked, but more than anything he feel a magnetic fever pulling him to her, as he pucks his lips and smirks – It would be a waste, I bet there is a female correspondent of bears.”

“Of what now?”

“Oh, maybe you're a lesbian. - he blinks, squints his eyes – I mean, I didn't think so, but it would make sense.”

“I'm not a... - she groans, sucks her lips, fights back anger – You know what, even if I were, there would be nothing bad about it.”

Jaime squints his eyes.

“... gay family member?”, he asks.

“Best friend. - Brienne replies, abruptly, then walks back mentally – But one doesn't need to be friends with a -”

“Yes, yes, okay. One doesn't, but you're fighting with basically a stranger about it, so. - he seems intrigued and amused, he smirks – Maybe you would anyway. You seem like a stubborn, fierce thing.”

“I'm not a thing.”, she says, closing the distance between them.

Only then, Jaime notices how she towers him.

He feels heat stirring in his groin, mixing his blood and electrocuting it to boil.

He labours to swallow.

“I didn't mean to offend. - he locks eyes with her and notices how damn blue they are, more than anything he’s ever seen, they are almost unnatural, incredibly vivid, it's a crazy blue, dense like honey and just as sweet – I do think it's a good quality.”

_She's cyan fire_ , he muses as his glance falls, due to something stronger than gravity, on her mouth and lingers on her parted lips.

She seems oddly confused.

“You're quite the chivalrous type. An anachronistic and deleterious life style, but by all means surely admirable.”

“You're still mocking me. - she sighs, exasperated – I’ve never seen you here before, why today.”

“Oh. - Jaime grins – I just … Tyrion lives here and I’m staying over for a couple of days.”

“I guess I'll take the bus for the week, then.”, Brienne mumbles, more to herself than him.

“You haven’t replied to me, by the way.”, he points out, bending forward slightly.

She backs two steps and frowns, staring at him in confusing, as if he's some kind of unpredictable snake.

His green eyes, though, are tender. Just mischievous.

“What kind of men do you attract?”

“That's none of your business.”, she states, fixing her bag and trying to step away from him to continue on the road, as direct and stubborn as a panzer.

He likes it.

He finds himself measuring her limits, testing the ground, seeing where he can or cannot step. He finds her amusingly pure.

Somewhat refreshing.

And her taste seems almost new to him.

“No, of course, but that's what small talk is all about, right?”

“How is someone so rude, so … so...”

“Irresistibly handsome?”, he suggests, grinning.

Brienne feels her mouth drop in a grimace and groans, “How arrogant.”

“Oh. - Jaime pretends not to understand – You'll find the two actually often walk hand in hand.”

She closes her eyes and breaths in, irritated. “That's not what I meant.”

“Let's pretend I know that.”

“You're so frustrating.”

“Part of my charm.”

Brienne scoffs, “Well, it doesn't work on me.”

Jaime snorts, “As if. - he feels a pang of pain hitting him and cutting his back, and his pride bends, but he is unsure why – I wouldn't hit on you even if I were paid to.”

Humiliation shines dark on her face and Brienne bites her lips, shaking her head.

“I didn't imply it to be sexual.”, she says, slowly, dragging and crumbling every word with anger and shame.

Only then Jaime realizes she probably is not one to think people hits on her at all.

_And of course, who would?_ He'd like to laugh, but a realization dawns in his stomach that, though, despite it all, while replying, his instinct was to push her against a wall and... _and? And what then?_

He gulps down. He is not sure.

But he looks at her lips again, they are full and plump.

One would say too much, but to him, they look so soft in that moment, he loses perception of how long he stares.

_She has a pretty mouth when she shuts up._

But, as she's still silent, he finds himself missing her banter too.

“I... - he tries to find something nice to say, but he realizes only then how deep he sank his last bullet and moves the look from her, glancing at the pavement – I would definitely pay for your food, though. Tyrion gave me some and it was... quite something.”

She frowns, unsure.

Did he just pay her a compliment?

 


	4. Chapter 4

4.

 

* * *

 

 

“Thank you. - she mumbles, looking down and then up again – I suppose.”

His green eyes seem kinder this time, as she looks at them.

Jaime lets out a small, smirk-y smile, sharp but harmless, and Brienne feels oddly good. She can't totally place why, though.

He then raises his eyebrows as if something really fun came to his mind and Brienne prepares herself for the punch-line that would hurt her, again, as if she didn't get enough of that.

A rush of coldness sits on her heart for a moment as she tries to swallow the blow before it even comes.

As if this way it would hurt less.

“I almost forgot, I have your handkerchief.”

She blinks then, surprised.

She expected a cruel joke and he handed her something, well, silly, but kind. Somewhat.

Jaime seems confused by her silence, “You.. you left it there, with me, after you helped me, and I suppose you don't have a secret factory of handkerchiefs, and that one looked fancy, so. - he then makes an amused grin – I mean, for how fancy cotton can be, but in these tragic times of paper tissues...”

She lets out an exasperated groan: as soon as she thought he could be nice …

“It's not important, you can keep it.”

“I went through the trouble of cleaning it!”

Brienne raises an eyebrow, not sure if she should be more perplexed by someone considering cleaning some outrageous hassle – men, then again … - or by the fact he was trying to pass something he decided to do autonomously as a favour or grace to her. And after he had been so horribly bad mannered that day in the first place and. And.

Her eyes shine, she lowers her eyelids and face, looking at the ground for a moment, before realization hits through her: it was his way of saying he’s sorry.

And, as wrong and pitiful and incomplete as it is, she has never had someone apologize to her before.

Everyone, somehow, had always just assumed she was strong enough to digest everything.

Brienne looks at him with a doubt she can't place.

She wants to put him in a box, to decide and label him, because that's the only way she knows how to protect herself: to divide the good and the bad, and never expect anything from the latter if not infested, infected cruelty.

She wants to have a clear answer about who he is, but he keeps changing.

Like a reflection in the waters, whose curves fluctuate and turn fake flesh into blue waves in a second.

She can't grab him, and it makes her frustrated. But not willing to go.

“And... did it come off?”

Jaime smiles, all proud, half-grinning, “I'm willing to bet it did. - then he points behind himself – It's in Tyrion's apartment, come up with me.”

Brienne frowns, “Without permission?”

“You have my permission. - Jaime shakes his head, baffled – I'm inviting you.”

“It's not your apartment.”

“It's my brother's. - he scoffs – Don't you have siblings? You know how it is.”

That squirts sourness into her throat and squeezes her heart drained.

She tries to speak a couple of times, but her eyes shine with tears she can't let out and her lips tremble because she catches them all back, suppress them, and adds, “He's an adult man, he has his privacy.”

“I'm not showing you his underwear drawer, then. - Jaime jokes, raising an eyebrow – Sadly, because his collection of handcuffs is worth checking.”

“He is your brother. - she points out – Is this the type of jokes you should make?”

_He makes incest jokes that are directed at me._

“As long as they are not dwarf jokes, you may have noticed, he has a sense of humour.”

Brienne seems defeated by that, “Can you fault him? - her eyelids flutter, as if she doesn't want to focus her awareness in front of her – I think also that takes a lot.”

Jaime frowns, stares. He observes her another time.

Now when he glances at her broken nose or big bones or strong traits, he doesn't see ugliness. He sees a mask that has to hide tender, raw flesh.

Bruised underneath.

For a moment he finds himself absurdly thinking something … silly, and angry. 

And his fingers twitch a little with the deep temptation of something that makes little sense.

_If I could caress under the skin, if I could touch where the bruises burn and fester … What then, Jaime?_

_Does she remind you of – doesn't she remind you of?_

_But nothing would heal. Because nobody can touch the blood when it's inside, between bones and the soul._

_And, after all, I'm nothing to her._

He gulps down and nods, smiling bitterly, “You're right on that one. Laughing things off is a skill.”

Brienne looks away, adrift, “More of a talent.”

“Which you admit you don't possess?”, Jaime asks, cocking a brow, but offering his hand, as to grab her bag.

“I can hold it.”, she says, keeping it tighter.

As if giving it to him would mean too much.

The fabric handles wrinkle under her hands, as she clenches them and looks straight in front of herself.

Jaime blinks, staring at her eyes, flutters his eyelids and wonders.  _Which shade of blue is that, even?_

_All colour names seem the same to me._

_Maybe Tyrion knows, maybe someone else could tell._

_But how could I ask? And why would I care? Tormenting myself over a colour. That colour._

_But it's just out of curiosity._

_Isn't it?_

_Which colour is it? Not green._

_Like hers. Like mine, too. Would I even know which colour eyes I have if it weren't because I share the colour with Cersei?_

_And was there ever a time where she shared mine instead and I knew hers because of mine?_

_She was vibrant, she was the sun._

_I stared too much and my eyes got burned._

_So when she turned dark, I couldn't see it – I cherished and collected all her old light behind my eyelids, kept it there, and somehow decided it was her present._

_I grew tired, I grew cold, and she couldn't light me up anymore, and I couldn't understand._

_And love is a rotten matter, isn't it?_

_Love is lying to yourself about eternity, it's making nauseating promises and getting your hands dirty with the things you bury to avoid seeing, to avoid losing hope, and then eating those things up whole and raw and full of earth just to stop your mind from digging them up._

_And then you lay on your back, in the wet ground._

_And wonder when the fuck you lost all of you._

_And why the fuck you didn't care for the longest time._

He glances at Brienne again, for a moment,  _But... that's more than just no green. It's a really pretty blue. I've never seen a blue quite like that._

_Her eyes look like drops of paint._

She stiffens as she catches him staring, and sucks her lips in, in shame. But they are too big for her to, and some of the flesh jumps back out slightly, twitching, now wet.

Jaime's look falls on it, and it gleams, and he gulps down and ignores that it did.

_Why would I stare at her lips?_

“It's... - he clears his voice, opening the door – You're okay with the lift?”

Brienne blinks, “Yes, why?”

“Well, you know, maybe you're too tall for the doors.”

“You never get tired of teasing and taunting, do you?”, she asks, not even angry anymore.

He looks at her while she enters through the big door and walks towards the elevator, and his eyes run on her back, from the big shoulders to the mellifluous dulcet curve at the bottom of it.  _She walks more like a man, than a woman_ , he muses, but he finds himself not minding.

It's somewhat magnetizing, really.

The way she strides, the strength and weight she puts on her shoulders and hips, forward, never graceful.

He remembers when Cersei got her first skirt that ended above the knees, how it cut at half of her thighs, really, and the way she wiggled her hips, until he threw her, bent her over the desk and fucked her, spilling as quickly as boys do at their starts, and she laughed and mocked him until he teased her clit, turning her laugh into moans.

He remembers thinking there was grace in every one of her movements.

_Also when she punched me._

_Also when she threw that dish. And it cut through and the blood spilled everywhere. And I apologized because it stained her parquet._

_Also when she sank the broken glass in my hand._

_And it didn't even feel painful. It just burnt. It burnt in my eyes more than in my arm._

_There was grace in her violence too._

_There always was, in everything of her. And there always was more of her than of me also in myself. Grace, grace can be tricky, at times._

_When it's not the grace of her playing with snow or kissing in the red autumn leaves or her body naked in the moonlight, but a knife of a smile and the word “love”, that tastes like gasoline._

He wonders what “love” would taste like if Brienne said it.

He catches himself thinking like that and shakes his head, as if he was shaking away drops of rain, shivering – she looks at him like he's funny, in a weird, bad way – and he feels shame riding his cheeks.

_Probably rough. Or like salt_ , he scoffs internally.

_But blue is sweet._

“So... - he tries to speak, while the elevator rises – You're a professor.”

“...is a joke about not being the type that students daydream about around the corner?”

“No, rather... I mean, that sounds like a lot of work.”

She sighs, “I’ll save you from the next joke, no, I don't have much of a social life.”

He frowns.

“Why?”

She bites her lips, “You can guess why.”

He looks at her, genuinely confused for a moment, then blinks, smirks, “So I'm not the only one not to find your personality radiant! - he lets out a small sigh – I was just starting to feel special, here!”

Brienne crosses her arms more, waiting for him to say anything about her body, but he doesn't.

“Are you happy with it?”

She looks embarrassed, “I don't mind it, love is not a priority to me.”

“I didn't mean that. - Jaime admits, furrowing his eyebrows – Though, I don't understand it, but... I meant your job. Do you like it?”

The lift stops and she still hasn’t processed it fully.

It's when Jaime opens the door to Tyrion's apartment and she remembers her colleague that she lets it fully sink in.

“Yes, I mean, I’ve always wanted to be a teacher. - then she lets melancholy get to her – Well, when I was four I wanted to be Lara Croft, but … - and then she bites her tongue, remembering herself – It died out quite quickly.”

“Hm.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because Tyrion has... been the only one in the family to pursue academic subjects, you know, knowledge for the sake of knowledge. - he mumbles, looking for the way to open the washing machine – I come from a pretty pragmatically-centred upbringing, so... curiosity.”

_Regret._

_Remorse._

_Rejection._

She stares at him, now bewitched: he was pretty handsome, she found herself realizing, despite his personality, and the sight of him crawling, bending next to the cube to find a button, his jeans tightening over his ass … geez, she did need to go out more often, didn't she?

“And what do you do, instead?”

“Right now? - he snorts – Nothing. I worked in my family business for a while.”

She wrinkles her nose in disgust, she has heard quite enough about the horrible economic views of their father from Tyrion's berating philippic and desperate harangues when Tywin Lannister candidated as politician.

“Let me guess, you think Tyrion and I are somewhat naive for doing something less remunerative.”

He scoffs.

And, when he turns to her, he is smirking sadly.

“Of course. What else.”

She gulps dry, feelings the weight of guilt.

He manages to open the washing machine and picks out … a still blood-stained handkerchief.

She sucks her lips: she should be angry, but his baffled, shocked expression is so endearing, and amusing. And ridiculous.

And somewhat cute.

“You don't really do the wash often, do you?”

“I do. - he complains, voice whiny – Sure, mostly my housemaid does, but-”

“Your what? - Brienne scoffs – Aren't you the portrait of having an easy life?”

_I don't have a life. I have half of it. I have half a soul too._

_I'm butchered to the core._

_Can't you see it? That I'm holed up?_

“You're quick to judge for someone who hates when others do it with her.”, he grins.

And it cuts. And sourness pours from it.

_Why would I even care what she thinks…_

 

*

 

Theon frowns, confused, blinking.

He tilts his head, resting it on the door.

“Why are you in Sansa's room?”

Robb jolts up, like a spring, terrified, eyes wide. His chest seems to drum.

“Jesus, Theon, you almost gave me a heart attack.”

Theon raises an eyebrow, “Well, I thought your room turned into a mix of all the shades of pink too, condemning me to become increasingly in danger of the pinkitis virus.”

Robb relaxes and sits on the bed, next to some little boxes and notebooks.

“Pretty sure the Greek word for pink is “ros” or “roz”, so I fear it would be “rositis”, for the matter.”

Theon looks unimpressed, “I know Greek, what are you doing here?”

Robb scoffs, then smiles, despite knowing too well Theon won't buy it.

His perfect innocent boy smile never worked on Theon, exactly like Theon's fakeass confident smirk never fooled Robb.

Theon looks at him, absolutely unconvinced, and cocks up a brow.

“I'm just checking if she's okay.”, Robb mumbles, defeated.

“Looks more like an invasion of privacy to me.”

“You speak like that because you're the youngest in your family, you don't have to protect anyone.”

Theon moves closer to Robb and sits on the bed with him, caressing the little boxes and the notebooks, smiling.

“You couldn't bring yourself to open them. - he snorts – You are quite the shoddy snoop.”

Robb groans, feeling caught and embarrassed. “I just know that whatever I find, I'll feel like shit. - he mumbles – If there is another jerk, fuck, there is another jerk, he's hurting her. - then his voice drops – But if there isn't, I... doubted her judgment and didn't trust her and invaded her space.”

“Robb, I didn't mea...”

“Either way, the trust is broken. - his eyes water, lucid, but he sniffles up and shrugs – It was, you know, before Joff, we'd tell each other everything.”

Theon smirks, smug and knowingly, but his voice is understanding and tender, “You mean, before she turned into a teenager?”

He lets out a little scoff and Robb groans, rolling his eyes and looking away.

“Robb. - Theon moves a hand to his thigh, almost gentle, as he is only with Robb, and sometimes with Sansa – You two are pretty close. Asha and I barely talk and you two share an apartment.”

Robb sighs, “Yeah, but with you, too.”

Theon squints his eyes, “Am I not cherished? Because I think you should absolutely adore my presence here. - he jokes, quickly, trying to not let the hurt settle at the bottom of his stomach – Actually, I kind of think we should institute rose petals and a red carpet where I wal...”

Robb interrupts Theon, putting his hand over Theon's, his thumb caressing Theon's fingers, slowly.

“I do. - Robb's voice sounds hoarse – It’s just that, sometimes, I would rather have only you.”

Theon gulps down slowly and painfully.

He can feel his stomach squirm like an eel, slapping him inside out with nausea.

His bottom lip trembles and he tries to reply, but Robb's hand moves away.

“Mom sent her here so I could keep an eye on her, but I can't, I work, she goes to university, she doesn't tell me anything about her love life. - he shakes his head, anxiety darkens the blue of his eyes – If there is another Joff, I wouldn't know.”

Theon manages to swallow the bitterness born from how cold his hand feels right then.

He manages a thin smile, “If there were, I would tell you.”

Robb looks at him, half-moved and half-sad.

“You two grew so close. - he plays with his fingers, fidgeting, squeezing his hands – I am a bit jealous, sometimes.”

“Well. - Theon shows his most arrogant smirk and a shinier glance – You are my bro, so she's like my sis too, you know?”

Robb looks like he just received a kick in the stomach and his voice comes out spiky and sharp, “It's not exactly the same.”

Theon frowns, confused, “Of... I mean, it's not, but, I was just saying.”

“Yeah, cut it. - Robb snaps, cold – It's not the same.”

Theon is quite used to Robb's temper and how quick it turns to anger for the silliest reasons. One time Robb yelled at him for helping Bran get away from some homeless people instead of thanking him; and the thing is, Robb forgets he yells, so then after two minutes he is in a perfect, damn irritatingly good mood and doesn’t realize he has still yelled at people and people may, crazily, queerly, weirdly, desire an apology. Theon had resented him for months, until Robb once bragged to his parents about how damn brave Theon had been in that occasion. And that was when Theon Greyjoy realized he fell in love with someone with the same perception of object permanence as a toddler when it came to emotional stuff.

… and it was not really enough to stop him from loving Robb, disgracefully.

So, yes, Theon is used to not giving importance to those moods; but Theon is also still trying to digest that his best friend touched his hand so sweetly and then pulled away before he could confess and that makes  _him_ angry.

“Oh, and why is it not?”, he blinks, playing dumb, while the smirk of utter offence rises on his lips.

Robb retreats slowly, sighing, “I'm just saying... you know... she's my sister, she's not directly your friend, like me.”

“Oh. - Theon raises an eyebrow again, and Robb is not sure whether he is amused, annoyed or both – So that's the difference? Nothing else?”

“As in?”

“As in, I don't know... I am some kind of man-whore who cannot be trusted around girls, for example?”, Theon suggests.

And Robb gets pale.

“Theon, I never meant it, I was.. - he breathes out, shame all over his face – I was really wasted, me and Jeyne just broke up and... really, I don't think that of you.”

Theon nods quickly and then grins again, irate, “Right! The breakup whose reason you never explained to me. - he stares at Robb – I mean, it's... years, you could have told me by now. What was the problem and why were you so angry at me?”

Robb let outs a small laugh.

He looks scared, Theon can tell too well: Robb is terrified.

Robb’s hands shake and he laughs nervously, “Look, I apologize, I was out of line, she's your sis, I'm your bro, I don’t think badly of you, don't... - his voice drops, his eyes look away in order to escape his – Don't … drill into it.”

Theon gulps down.

It burns.

Whenever he sees that Robb is about to get hurt, he stops himself and has to find another way. He can never really be mean to him. And it fucks him up, because being mean and not caring is what saved him from being hurt half of his life.

But with Robb he can't help but leave him the power to hurt him.

“Just... - he sighs – Can you tell me if it was about me?”

Robb frowns, “What?”

“Jeyne and you breaking up. - he squeezes himself into his shoulders, protectively – I, you're right, you never said those things to me, nor before nor after it happened, so... I mean, is it because when you returned I was fucking Kyra, is it...”

Robb's lips part and a sigh escapes.

“It was not your fault.”

“So it was about me.”

“It's still not your fault! - Robb almost shouts, but this time it’s worry that shines wet and liquid in his voice – It's... she decided to close it. And I agreed.”

Theon looks at Robb.

It doesn't make any sense, he squints his eyes, looks to the ground, tries to sum up what's going through his thoughts. But his mind is a mess and everything seems to get just more and more complicated every time he goes over what Robb said. His mind gets hazy, because there is an option he doesn't dare to formulate. He is not that crazy. He knows it can't be.

So, instead, he asks, half-joking and half-heartbroken, “Did Jeyne get a crush on me or something?”

And Robb looks at him with the same sheer, pure, raw pain in his eyes.

“Yes. - he says, in the tone which means he’s lying, but Theon doesn't notice it this time – Yes, that was it.”

 

*

 

“I can’t believe that! - Sansa laughs – I refuse!”

“Scouts honour. - Tyrion promises, entering the building, smiling at her laugh – And that's how I got officially banned from public transportation in Italy.”

Sansa shakes her head, “How do you do that?”

“What? Make people angry at me? - he grins, makes a little grimace and warmth pools in her belly – It's a talent.”

Sansa lowers her head and sucks her lips.

Tyrion notices only then that the colour of her lipstick is fading slightly from the centre of her lips, and he knows he should probably warn her about it, but instead, he cherishes that little flaw –  _as if anything on her could be a flaw_ – that is only for himself to witness.

“No. - she curls her lips – Make big and witty speeches and be clear, not let emotions through your thoughts to spill all over when you talk.”

He keeps the door open for her, though it's heavy, and she notices it, but promptly moves quicker to the lift to open that for him.

Tyrion swallows down his rejected chivalry.

_Maybe she didn't notice, maybe she thought the button is too high for me …_

_How short am I to her?_

“You can do that too. - he says – You argument brilliantly, your essays are ...”

“Written. - she interrupts him, letting out a little, shy smile that shines brighter than anything Tyrion has ever seen and it hits him in the stomach how pretty she is, while she continues – I am calmer, I can think and measure. When I'm... in the situation, in front of it, I panic.”

Tyrion swallows hard.

He forces his eyes to be more gentlemanly and educated than his thoughts for a moment.

“I'm a dwarf, so... - he shrugs, he smiles, but there is a gleam in his eyes that seems to beg Sansa not to touch him or to correct his language to the polite version – I always assumed, of course, that people are going to laugh at me, either in front or behind my back. - Sansa frowns, listening – So, you see, I didn't worry about... getting their approval, I knew I couldn't.”

Sansa weights those words, letting out a small mumble, before saying, “Did it make you angry?”

_Yes._

“I suppose.”, his voice gets low.

Sansa bites her lips and clenches her bag, “I was angry too.”

Tyrion raises his glance again and meets Sansa's eyes, as they grow wide and light and shiny and liquid and…  _she's sniffling._

He stiffs, freezing on the spot.

It's the first time he’s seeing anyone, except children, cry.

Everyone around him either hates him or feels too much pity for him to ever melt in front of him.  _Maybe my deformity makes them feel better._ But now Sansa is crying, well, not full blown weeping, but she is sniffling and teardrops collect in the corners of her pretty eyes.

_No, no, no, no, please, no, don't cry. What do I do? Fuck. Fuck. Emotional contact? Why is she so... why am I so... Jaime could hold her._

_Jaime would hold her shoulders and bring her close to his chest._

_And he would kiss her head of hair and she'd feel protected and safe._

_He is not me. She'd like him. She'd feel good._

_All I can arrive to is holding her around her chest, clumsily, on my tiptoes._

He bites his lips to the blood, hating himself. It burns through him, low and acidic, and hollows out his flesh. He is all full of bleeding craters and weeping holes eroded by pain, slowly, over time.

He has had an ocean of it. It drags and gorges and scoops ravines and abysses and pits inside your heart until nothing is left but scars you patch together and try to pretend don't deform your walk through the world.

But after a while like that everything hurts.

He sinks his nails into the flesh of his palm, hating himself for not comforting her despite his body and hating his body because he can't comfort her like that.

“I'm sorry... - Sansa sniffles again, passing a hand over her eyes while a sense of failure cuts Tyrion’s stomach open and guts him there in that lift – I just...”

“Whoever made you feel inadequate – he starts, before even realizing it, and his nails stop drowning into his palms, and he moves his hand to Sansa, though he can't reach her face, he caresses the part of her arm he can arrive to, he does not dare hold her hand – was a fool with poor judgment of people.”

She lets out a weak, thin laugh.

_You don't believe it, do you?_

His fingers linger on the soft lagoon of her elbow, and the tender shell of her skin turning softer. He caresses where her veins pop in the sugarest blue against her pale skin.

_And she's so soft._

_She's so pure_ , he thinks.  _My hand does not belong here._

_My hand can't belong on her._

Yet she does not move away. She lowers herself to her knees, almost falling, but for a moment – a silly, stupid, foolish moment – Tyrion allows himself to dream and think she's dragging herself down to feel his touch closer, to be near to him.

For a moment, just a moment, he dares to not feel like a gargoyle festering her skin just by caressing it.

“My... - she breathes out – My ex-boyfriend used to call me stupid all the time. - she licks her lips – Which I was, but, am, maybe, but...”

He almost glares at her.

“Absolutely not! - his voice echoes through her and when she meets his eyes, hers seem to shine, surprised – You are by far the best... – _person_ – student I've ever had. You are just brilliant.”

_Incredible._

“I'm so sorry. - she whispers, mortified, shaking her head – Oh, god, am I really crying in front of you, you'll think I'm not serious, I...”

_Why would I think that?_

_You are the only one who let herself be vulnerable with me._

_You're the only one that seems to be neither scared of me nor pity me? I've fucked people and was less intimate with them than I'm feeling right now, with you._

_And I can't even be honest._

_And here, as a liar and a powerless impotent idiot, unable of holding you, I feel more sincere and raw and free than I ever..._

The lift’s doors open and beep, asking them to exit.

But as Sansa tries to rise up, Tyrion places his bag against the photocell, blocking them.

She blinks, “But it's...”

He winks, “I'm disabled. - he grins – Nobody is going to complain for ten minutes more.”

She smiles, her eyes still lucid but the corners of her mouth are as radiant as the spring sun.

And now that she's just a bit above his height, Tyrion's eyes fall on her lips again, this time linger.

_It would take just a second._

_Just one second._

_She's normal._

He gulps down and sniffles up, feeling his nose tingle. His voice comes out hoarse, and he looks at the floor, diverting his glance.

“Do you remember our first lesson?”

She frowns, nods weakly, “About heraldic symbols.”

“You knew all of them, but shut up, while your classmates gave... well... - his eyes widen in horror, remembering – Sadly creative answers.”

“How do you know I knew them all?”

“The look you made when someone said something wrong, with your eyelids batting nervously and your pupils ragging unwillingly while you stared at the person. - Tyrion smirks – It was the type of look I'd give my sister every time she'd discuss politics.”

Sansa lowers her face, embarrassed. Her cheeks turn the colour of pink wine.

Tyrion gulps down, then forces his voice to be less hoarse, but it comes out strained. “I don't know who taught you that you are less than them. But that day, and every following day, you were better than two hundred other people. - he grins at her, proud, and she sees that gleam and feels warm and big – You have found something you're a giant at and nobody can take that away.”

For a moment after he bites his own tongue.

_Did I say giant?_

_Did I just confess it? Expose myself? So stupidly? So pathetically?_

But she smiles, genuinely, and it's light coming out of her lips.

And she's perfect. And, most immensely, she's normal.

And that frightens Tyrion, it terrifies him.

His knees jiggle when she stands up again, smiling wide, “That's the sweetest thing anyone’s ever told me.”

Tyrion smiles at her sadly.

He misses having her at his height, for a moment.

He misses the illusion he had they could look into each other's eyes easily.

Then he sees how happy she is and he wonders if he shouldn't be okay with that being all there is.

“Then, miss Stark, you're surrounded by idiots.”

And every time she laughs, he feels like he’s about to puke his heart out, because it flutters inside him.

He's too old to feel butterflies. He's too old to be smitten.

He wishes he had a needle or a nail to crucify all those jittery butterflies of lies to the walls of his stomach.

“I seem to have had some good luck now, though.”, Sansa replies.

But Tyrion isn’t listening, because he can hear ruckus from his apartment.  _Right, Jaime._

He looks at Sansa again, panicky.

_What if she sees him? What if she likes him? What if they fall in love and I have to be all happy and glad while she kisses him? I can't be him, I can't be him, I'll never be him._

_I'm the waste._

_I'm the extra you scoop away to put in the trash._

_She smells like wild watermelon and summer evenings spent reading on the porch, playing footsie and smiling, looking at the blue, lit up by fireflies._

_I'm just not-Jaime._

_Maybe this is why I hate how he feels like he’s just not-Cersei._

_What right does he have to deny his body?_

“Is everything alright? - Sansa asks, looking at the door, now that they’re in front of it, and then at Tyrion – It sounds like someone is screaming.”

“I have the sensation my brother is discussing with... - he falls perplexed: that was not Cersei's voice he heard after Jaime's - ...someone?”

He pushes the door open and finds Jaime pinned against the wall by an utterly enraged Brienne, who is glaring at him, while he is grinning wide like a jerk, with a languid look in his eyes, like he's having the time of his damn life.

Tyrion groans.

“What did I tell you about bullying professor Tarth?”

Brienne turns, mortified and ashamed and babbles something, her mouth trembling, while Jaime just smirks, points a finger at her and claims, “She started it!”

Brienne turns to him, enraged.

“Are you five?”

Sansa can physically, on her body, feel the curse word that Brienne avoided using and looks in front of herself, almost petrified.

She has never witnessed professor Tarth behave like that. Granted, she was hot-blooded and proud and idealistic and she did feel a lot of topics deeply, but... that level of wrath, of her face turning so red her eyes looked even bluer, and her whole face contracted and her voice hard as steel was, well, a first.

She glances at the man next to her, which she realizes to be professor Lannister's brother.

Her eyes run on him, trying to find some bigger resemblance than the gold of his hair and the green of that one eye, but the only one she really spots is how bitter the aftertaste of their smiles is.

Jaime grins, confidence peaking on his mouth like he has obtained exactly what he wanted. His jaw’s dimple catches Brienne's glance, but she suffocates that in the bottom of her stomach.

His stubble looks like speckles of dirty gold.

And she shouldn't be thinking of that, at all.

But heat pools in her belly.

And she holds him against the wall stronger, and his grin grows sharp and tempting.

“Grow up.”, she intimidates him, before letting go.

Where their skin mixed, it burns. Embers of possibilities.

Tyrion moves to the two, “What happened here?”

“He'll update you. - Brienne suggests, gulping down the shame she feels – I have to go now, I'm sorry.”

He looks at her and then at Jaime, “Yeah, I so very hope someone will care to explain this to me.”

Sansa just observes Brienne walking out and then Jaime again.

She sucks her lips.

Apparently two oblivious idiots in her life were not sufficient.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize infinitely for the delay.  
> It has been an unfunny time :D" I'm moving to another country (with all the packing, documents, checkings and medical stuff you can imagine), plus my fantastic anxiety disorder decided self-doubt was the way to go and in the end I spent days headbutting the wall :D ! When I managed to regain myself it was the 23rd and the 25th I had to update the VietnamAU and then here we are :D..... I know, the joys of life.  
> Thanks to some superior being and the power of New Pills, though, seems like now life is slowing down again and with the good exception of the 6th and 7th (days of the actual travel), I should be able to return to exist and write normally.

5.

 

Sansa's fingertips brush the spines of the books gently.

The rough texture of fabric-covered first editions, the warm smoothness of leather ones, the tender wrinkles of paperback run under her skin.

It felt somewhat comforting and melancholic, as if the touch brought to the surface of the water of her fingers traces of lives she hasn't lived yet.

Pins and needles run to her gently, ripples of life coming to her.

Jaime glances at her and then at his brother and, for a moment, he looks cheerful and younger. His face lights up, all bright, and Tyrion has the weird sensation that whatever happened to him in the last years has been put aside for a moment.

Jaime's old mischievous smile of when he was twelve came back.

He looks so amused Tyrion doesn't have the strength to scold him.

“You should tell her something.”, Jaime whispers, half grinning.

“You mean in an alternative universe in which it's not both hopelessly stupid and professionally insane?”, Tyrion asks back, low-voiced.

His eyes still follow Sansa as she muses through his books, pick some, meditating on them.

He remembers when he was small, measuring himself against the world, feeling small and wrong in the sense of a deformity that’s rooted far deeper than in his skin or bones.

He remembers when their nanny showed him, he wonders if out of pity or cruelty, the Beauty and the Beast, and he remembers feeling a weird thrill – he was ugly too, and when he spoke he hurt people too, and he was scary, and he loved books, so, so much, him too … he had started to hope that perhaps, also for him, it was some kind of a witch’s sick joke. Or anything changeable, really.

Maybe his body was not going to be like that forever.

Maybe there was a magic kiss or a pill somewhere for him too.

But that never came, and neither did a girl who loved books as much as he did.

And as he stares at Sansa for a moment, his stomach twists sick with brackish waves of thorns and wire. She came and she loves those books just as much as he does.

But she doesn't love him though.

And the magic kiss or pill still slips from his too small, too round hands.

He looks at her and almost sees it, a pill as thin as rose petals, slowly, but surely, slipping down, through his stupid malformed fingers.

And he can't do anything to keep it.

He gulps down and turns to Jaime, “I couldn't, even if it made sense, and it doesn't.”

“You should take some risks.”

“Not all of us are living a second adolescence. - Tyrion points out – Dropping our jobs, sleeping until late and, what's next? Wearing Guns n' Roses T-shirts again?”

“Hey, you loved My Michelle as a kid.”

“I loved that my brother was playing the guitar for me, it's different.”

Jaime lets out a lopsided smile, seeming entendered enough to not press it but absolutely not enough to drop the topic.

“Why don't you just try?”

“Do I really have to explain to someone who'd fuck their twin why people would like to date someone in their league instead of someone the Spartans would have thrown into a chasm of the Taygetus?”, Tyrion half-hisses and then walks to the living room again, where Sansa has put aside some books on the coffee table.

She has something in the way she moves that is enchanting.

Maybe it's the way her skin looks smooth and the lines drawn ever so gently, like she's marble and silk. Maybe it's the way her gestures are delicate, almost musical in their cadence. She never rushes, she never twists, her turns are tender like the liquid, crystal flesh of river bends.

She's so delicate, Tyrion feels he'd bruise her or dirty her just by brushing over her.

Polyphemus didn't get Galatea, did he?

“Have you found something that could be useful?”, he asks her, his voice comes out hoarser and more choked than he'd like.

But she just looks radiant.

Tyrion wonders if beyond not being able to see him she also can't hear him. Not really.

“I found so much! - she smiles, then sucks her lips – But I feel a bit guilty about taking them, are you sure you won't need them in the meantime?”

“I like having read things more than reading. - Tyrion confesses, with a musing smile – Research with calm, it's not a problem.”

She caresses the spine and hinges of a book, her little, rounded nails playing with the paper curves of the pages. 

“I never thanked you for picking my thesis.”

Tyrion frowns, “You don't have to thank me for such a thing.”

Sansa is not very convinced of that.

She had seen the names of the other students who candidated to have professor Lannister as a referent tutor for their thesis, and when she did, she was hugely tempted to not even try. 

“Margaery Tyrell's thesis about the role of queens as behind the scene rulers seemed way more interesting.”

“Perhaps. - Tyrion mumbles, unsure how to express his admiration for her without letting the rest transpire, scaring her or leaving her feeling even less valuable professionally – I preferred sending her to another professor, though. - he licks his lips – Had I had to trace a Venn diagram between actually smart students, topics that actually had to do with my subject and people whom I think could actually have the skills to become my assistant... the only overlapping name would had been yours.”

Sansa blinks, surprised, “You really think that?”

Tyrion scoffs, “You’ve seen my exams, did I strike you as someone who'd lose time with a person they deemed stupid?”

Sansa smiles wide, her eyes lighting up, her face gleaming.

Jaime looks at her from across the room and sort of knows. She's so different from anyone who has ever been in Tyrion's life.

She missed from it for all those years …

Jaime's eyes run on her, slipping smoothly through her gestures and grace, on the way her hands move or her eyes laugh.

_Have you always felt a hole inside, shaped like her? Have you always felt a void you couldn't fill up?_

_How does it feel being alone?_

_I know loneliness, but not aloneness. I know how the solitude of when you’re only one heart and the other that should share your beat seems to synchronize away feels, but not even having that piece … ?_

_How much did you hate me, for having it since birth?_

_And are you happy now? Do you feel comforted or vindicated by me crumbling? By me being you, all of a sudden?_

… _God, I'm so mean. He needs me and all I can do is think this._

“I'm sure you'll have a beautiful career as an assistant. - Jaime enters the conversation, smiling with that liquid gleam in his eyes that means he has to stir the waters – Your family is supportive, right?”

“Oh, absolutely! - she smiles – Especially my father, he was afraid I was going to drop everything after high school to follow romance and have children. - then she seems to feel guilty – Which there wouldn't be anything bad about, of course! Per sé. But I did have some... turbulent teenage crushes and let's say me dedicating myself to not-romance was... - she smiles, tenderly – Very soothing for him.”

Tyrions frowns, worried. 

“Turbolent? - Jaime chuckles, without malice, but with a certain thorn in his speech, which Tyrion is used to but it makes Sansa stiff a little – I wouldn't say that from looking at you.”

Sansa gulps down, lowers her look, her hands start squeezing one another, nervously, desperately. She does that to calm herself at times during lessons, Tyrion knows, but she's so quick in it, so in need of that calming effect that she drops a couple of books on the floor with a dull sound.

“I... - she mumbles, stutters, looks down and bends to get the books – Judging people is not my forte.”

But as her hands brush over the books, Tyrion is already there, making a huffed puffing laugh, “I'm closer, let me.”

She smiles, but she stays down with him all the same.

She doesn't want to leave that moment, for some reason. She feels silly, like a child playing not to step on white tiles or walking solely on a thin, painted line, but she feels the inexplicable need of staying there, where he is, as to listen to a siren inside, a thrill, violet and violent and soft and soiled that asks her to be close to him.

When Tyrion raises his eyes from the floor, ready to lift himself and hand her the books again, he sees her close to him still.

And his pupils get blown back, now wide.

Sansa stares: there is some green also in his black eye. It  _is_ green.

She knows, of course, that black eyes don't exist, that it was supposed to be a dark grey or brown, but a dark green... has anyone ever told him that his eyes are less mismatched than he thinks them to be? That he is not so cut in half?

She sucks her lips, staring as panic sets in him, silent and huge, a deluge and tidal wave of thunderous saturninity and muteness. He backs up, like a deer, exposed to danger.

And she's sure she shouldn't feel closer to him then more than ever, while he goes away.

But she sees him and sees herself and their weaknesses and fragilities meet somewhere in the space between them.

“Thank you.”, Sansa whispers warmly, as she tends a hand to Tyrion's.

He glances at it, as if it could scald him.

Then he gives her the books and finally stands up again.

Sansa smiles again and looks at Jaime then, standing up, “But one grows up, no?”

Jaime nods, somewhat weakly.

_Judging people, not her forte?_

_Well, I always thought it was mine. And maybe it is, as long as the people in question aren’t Cersei._

_I was so blind then._

_Or maybe she is not like that. I'm doubting her. I should just ask her. I should. I'm not even sure I saw her with Lancel. Maybe I'm wrong._

_Maybe it was someone else, maybe I saw what I wanted to see._

_I should ask her. I should. I … you know she'll just twist things, right? You know if you let her speak she'll pour honey on the dagger and let sugar rain on your wounds._

_If you let her speak, you'll feel guilty and hate yourself. Again. Again._

_If you let her, she'll sing melodies of love, call you back, her voice is the echo of the sea in a shell – there is no water, no sea, but you see it all the same. You're a fool, Jaime, a poor fucking fool. You need to stay away from her._

_If you let her convince you, she'll break you._

_She has a way with you, like cats with their prey, like mirrors and songs, she'll caress your hair, twirl it around her finger, put your hand on her waist - “Look at how well we fit, look at it, you always felt right, the only one who ever felt right, we're each other's only place” - and place around your neck a new collar of lead and steel._

Tyrion furrows his eyebrows, “Jaime? Planet Earth to Jaime?”

Jaime stiffens, “I should probably go out a bit... I have things to pick up from home.”

Tyrion looks at him a long silent while, as if he's trying to understand whether Jaime will indeed come back or if he's using this as an excuse to rush home, to avoid facing things and return to Cersei.

Bad, ultimately, he cannot force him.

He can just play sly and make sure he'd have to face them.

“Take my car. - he says with a thin smile, nodding – You just need to take off the pedal extenders so you can bring everything you need.”

Jaime nods, weakly, almost spacing out.

For some reason, all he's thinking about is their childhood house and the case filled with drawings and the smell of wax pastels. He remembers trying to read the colour’s names, finding it hard.

Cersei would laugh. Tyrion learned to read before he memorized those sixty-four names.

Those little letters used to mix up and make him dizzy.

He remembers thinking he’s stupid, he remembers hating colours and stopping to try.

When he arrives at the car, undoes the pedal and seat extenders, he sits in it for a moment, looking at the steering wheel, holding it. He had hated to read more than half of his life.

Because it made him feel so inadequate, so different from Cersei.

_I was afraid she'd leave me._

_She never did, she just mocked me._

He caresses the leather, he feels the texture under his fingertips. It was so unfair.  _We're identical, we share everything, and yet she never had any problems with it._

_She could read all she wanted to, had she. But she didn't. She never cared._

He remembers he liked to draw also because he didn't need to write and he could make up stories … His drawings always had more and more going on in them, like in a film, he'd add scenes and things happening, one after the other, in the same frame. It didn't matter if others didn't understand it, he did, and he had his story and none of the letters.

He wonders if he could have written … had he not been like that.

_Stupid?_

_It's not stupidity. Yes, it is. I'm the stupidest one._

_You really are the stupidest of us, how does it feel to be retarded when the deformed one is not? Don't call him that. Well, it's true, I'm just being honest here. I’m sorry you cannot take it. I'm like this, take or leave, I don't like to sugar-coat. It's not sugar-coating, he doesn't deserve this. Oh, please._

_Your words, my words, they all get confused and mixed up, like ice melting slowly. The level rises. I lose myself, I drown._

_And I cannot set fire to myself anymore._

He gulps down, dry and pained. His Adam's apple knots and hurts.

_She didn't mean to hurt me. She didn't mean those words. Jaime, for fucks sake._

_Remember when she cried in the bathroom as she got her period? Remember when she asked dad to let her lead the office instead of me? She did better than him. Remember when she didn't want to marry? We fucked the morning of her wedding._

_We made love._

_Fucked. Like she fucked Lancel. Behind my back, scratching the concrete of my bones, turning me to dust, I have trenches where my strength used to be._

_Stop defending her. She takes you and pulls you along and she goes to your head._

_But she's the only one. The only one what? Who never left me alone. Who never abandoned me. Who could love me enough to stay._

He shakes his head, closes his eyes, forces himself to think about something else, someone else, anything, anyone. He tries to think about literally anything.

_I never had anyone else._

_What do I know of a woman's smell? Or a woman's touch? I know Cersei's. And just hers._

_Do I even exist beyond her? Maybe I'm just a leftover trace of her golden green._

_Maybe I'm the glass to hold the wine she is._

_Maybe I'm just that and I should be fine with being just that._

_Stop. This is ridiculous._

_She cried, she cried so hard and sank her nails in my arm and her voice was shattered pieces of mirrors and fat tears and rolling, liquefied thunder and tired whites. She cried so hard and felt so alone._

_That side of her, just I know. Only I can see that of her. She lets me in._

_Maybe she just doesn't show her love like others, but she cares, she cares. She is my other half and I'm hers and I match but she matches me and …_

_Then why hasn’t she called or texted since you left?_

_She hasn't searched for you in days._

He clenches the stirring wheel until his knuckles stick out and become white. 

And he thinks about the green lights he will find and the red ones, and green and red are both Cersei and he doesn't know how to digest it. She's everything and it scares him.

_Do I exist outside her?_

He swallows and the pain and the thought of her seem to get stuck in his throat and, as he forces himself to ignore it, his palm brushes over the wheel.

For a crazy instant, Jaime dreams of having taken that trip alone he never had the guts to, in University, and drive across the country, to arrive to Land's ends, and go to the beach, and throw himself in the freezing sea and breath in the salt and waves and sand.

He would sing on the road, he would rest on the sand, tides rising and smooth storms caressing his feet, and he would light a fire.

And sparks of orange would rise in the pitch black, dense sky.

And maybe he would have found a part of him without phantom pain.

He closes his eyes, breathes in – imagines it, tastes it on his tongue. He moves his head a bit, humming low,  _you got a fast car, I want a ticket to anywhere... maybe we can make a deal._ He smiles.  _Maybe together we can get somewhere._

And a weird twist whips his stomach and cuts his heartbeat in two.

His eyes shoot open.

Why did his mind think about that damn professor now?

Jaime sweats, moves a lock of hair behind his ear nervously, clearing his forehead, and shrugs – as a tree shaking off the snow – too cold for him to believe it to be true. And he shakes his head, and turns the key.

_Must be because of her stupid eyes, the colour of the stupid sea._

… _she does have astonishing eyes._

He resents himself for thinking that, because it leaves a bitter aftertaste in his mind. As if he has caressed the knob of a door he can't open yet.

 

*

 

She doesn't do it often.

Not lately, anyway.

Her weeks have been horribly busy, between some of the most unprepared students she has ever had the displeasure of teaching, Renly and Loras’ wedding, and now that pestering man who has aggravated her day beyond belief and left her way more frustrated than what she would have been able to justify to herself.

Now, though, she feels the slap of guilt in her stomach twist like an eel down her abdomen.

She knows better than being upset with Renly; it was not his fault, after all, that for years she had the most hopeless crush on a gay man. Sometimes she wonders if she has always known, subconsciously, and the whole thing was just a way for her to stop thinking about the men who have hurt her and allow herself a romantic feeling without the possibility of it being realized and, therefore, wounding her.

She forced herself to stop overthinking and supressing, but it was hard to.

Since Renly came out, she already found quite awkward... the idea of fantasizing about him. Sue her, she is a woman in her sexual prime, her hormones exist! Nobody would have blamed a man for doing the same, right? 

And yet she does feel guilty about it.

She has even felt, well, bigoted in a way. Which she didn't think she was.

Maybe she is just programmed for wanting the impossible. She must have a flawed code or something.

And yet … when Renly told her, so plainly and simply, with a little, bright smile, none of his usual charisma, but all of the most unusual softness, that he was going to propose to Loras, a steel thorn sank deep into Brienne's chest and hasn't moved since.

The soul around it still stings and burns – the rust has turned her sour and grumpy.

She has since that day, though, stopped seeing Renly sexually. She has imposed herself not to think any of the similar of someone who is soon to be married and has been an impossible daydream even before that.

But that has impacted the stress relief quite a lot.

She has never been able to just imagine some random man: if the thought of her years long crush liking her back was absurd, then the idea of someone else who doesn't even know her finding her attractive is even less believable.

Brienne has always thought that maybe, perhaps, someone would have learned to love her, beyond her face and body. Liking those? Well, that seems too unrealistic to her.

But time has passed and stress has been crawling and stinging in her nerves and she can feel her migraines push and pull and claim her, each time more and more.

She puts the laptop on her side, abandons correcting those essays that are on their own huge turn offs and therefore highly counterproductive, and sinks into her chaise longue, sliding a hand slowly down her belly and between her thighs. Her hand twitches, hesitates, a long moment on her soft, golden bush.

Guilt sinks through her and stirs her stomach.

But she refuses to listen. She's not a little shy girl anymore.

Brienne's hand slips into the little drawer next to the chaise lounge – it's mostly filled with papers, pens, some bitter chocolate for the end of the semester and finals, and then... well, a single girl's best friends. Her fingers court a vibrating egg and pull it out.

She closes her eyes, letting her fingers draw over her lips, feeling, brushing their soft folds. 

A wet heat soon pools down in her. Her slit pulses, calls, but she doesn't go there just yet. She teases her entrance, feels it warming, pulsing. Her breath tingles in the air, and then she sinks a finger in, a second. She sucks her lips to redness, suffocating a moan.

And then she allows the egg to glide in smoothly. It slides so right. She's still tight; wet enough to make it easy, but less than what would delete the pleasurable discomfort of extraneity sinking into her.

She turns it on and her head arches back, almost jolting.

Enough time has passed for it to feel enrapturing. She can feel her walls mewl and crave, the vibration echoing through her nerves, shivers riding her back.

She can feel her own voice twisting and twitching, trapped in her throat. Her lips quiver, but she bites them sewn shut.

She grabs a little bottle of lube and pours it on her neglected clit and on her fingertips.

And, as she does, Brienne's back jerks with a deep shiver, rooted in her hips. God, she did let too much time pass, didn't she?

She bites the back of her left hand while her right’s fingers circle her clit, court it, before on its needy little body, then teasing the soft hood.

Her hips thrust into the void with a strong jolt as pleasure ignites her.

A little, wide smile starts to rise on her swollen, wet lips, and, eyes closed, her mind wanders. Her fingers glide over her tip, shudders dithering through her, waves of white-hot tremors throbbing through her. 

She could imagine a tongue lapping her, suckling her, teasing her.

Brienne's eyebrows twitch, she opens and closes her mouth. And she squirms, sucking her own lips, while her fingers go quicker and quicker, rubbing her little head to fire.

The egg jumps and palpitates inside her, her walls clenching onto it, swelling in need of release, while waves of pleasure wash through her, white, hoarse delight making her needier, faster, more and more enraptured.

And then she sees him.

With her eyes closed, arm tense and body craving, she imagines that stupid, arrogant man between her thighs. And she doesn't know why and she is sure she shouldn't.

But there is something so elating and perfect in the idea of him shutting up.

And filling his mouth just with her taste instead of his words.

And she can picture his stubble scratching her, his tongue running on her clit, then slowly circling it, coming closer and closer to the tip, making her wait and then pursuing and pleasing it properly, seeking her squirms and writhes, serenading her with a silent, blissful dedication.

Brienne's mouth opens wide and she has to push her knuckles in to stop herself from moaning loud and high. Or, god forbid, calling his name.

She can picture what an elated, cocky look he'd give her, between her legs, as his tongue would lick and drink her. God damn him.

And then Brienne imagines pushing his head closer, rubbing away that expression, claiming his attention fully. A hot whip of pleasure presses inside her. She knows then she's close, her hand goes faster and faster, she stops using the fingertips, goes with the whole fingers, rougher, unable of containing the need.

She'll regret it later, but right now she doesn't plan on slowing down the ride.

Jaime Lannister is between her legs, giving her clit the time of its life, and she pictures him moaning hoarsely, grunting, as he'd get hard too, just from feasting on her.

He is so eager, his tongue dragging and tormenting her pulsing tip.

She feels almost like she’s going to faint, her wrist starts to hurt and her walls clench and beg.

And then she imagines him smirking against her cunt, while licking her, and his hot breath and his hands cupping her thighs, as he'd press and then …

Wet azure thunder melts through her nerves, she curls her feet, arches her back and comes with a raspy moan.

The egg gets shot out and keeps vibrating on the sofa, while Brienne's hand still rests on her pink knob. It still thrums lightly, getting faint and dim, while her breath trembles.

Afterglow paints her cheeks the wildest pink, while her chest raises and moves with a slightly jerking rhythm.

Brienne stares at her hand, at the phalanges and smells herself.

For a moment, she had hoped to smell him too.

Though she knows it makes no sense.

 

*

 

Theon knows, objectively speaking, that there is no reason in the whole universe for him to resent Robb over that conversation.

He does anyway.

He is tapping nervously on his keyboard since hours, an uncomfortable sensation of deep insatisfaction sinking through him, drenching his skin, but he cannot fight it back.

Robb is out working and Sansa went to university, so he finally has some time to work on some new research, but then, there he is, his mind is blank.

When the doorbell rings, he almost doesn't notice he jumps and kicks the charger.

He sighs and walks to the door, unsure if hoping it's Sansa so he could update her or Robb so they could be alone a bit; when Jaime Lannister is in front of him, Theon raises his eyebrow cartoonely high, but he decides to have fun with it.

Nothing is more relaxing than acting like he has his life together.

He leans on the doorstep and smirks, crossing his arms seductively, “Well, well, you don't look like the photo I swiped right.”

“I'm sure I look better, but don't fret, you're not below my standards.”, Jaime mocks back.

Theon seems more amused than anything else and looks at the folder Jaime has with him, frowning.

“Are you a cop or did you bring kinbaku knots and want me to give you a tutorial?”

Jaime lets out a small snort, “I took Tyrion's car to go to my apartment, but, I, well, I saw this on the other seat, there was a “bring to Theon” sticky note over and... I thought I'd be nice to bring it to save him the trouble.”

Theon raises an eyebrow, cocking it with doubt.

“...and you googled my address for it.”

“Maybe.”

“You... do know I don't fuck curious straight men, right? - Theon asks, tentatively, while his expression is playful and he fakes a grimace, while clearly he is just waiting to hear more – I'm so mortified if I gave you the wrong impression.”

Jaime looks at him half-done and smirks, “You proof read Tyrion?”

Theon's lopsided smirk gets sharper and his warm voice like raw, dirty honey comes out with a low, dark, chuckle.

“And here I thought I was special to you...”

Jaime sighs, knowing he does have to explain himself, somewhat.

“Can I enter, maybe?”

Theon caresses the little folder with the pages and takes it, before nodding, “Take off your shoes, the parquet is clean.”

Jaime obeys, though it makes him feel somewhat uncomfortable, like a fish discovering it can breathe outside water. He walks into the apartment and sees Theon sitting at a glass table, moving his laptop away, and patting on the chair next to him.

Jaime follows, and clears his voice, “I mean, I'm not sure if it's as a favor or for work, but...”

“Tyrion doesn't have assistants right now, so someone else has to do it. Professor Connington offered me like a piece of intellectual meat. - he plays with the papers Jaime gave him – Why?”

Jaime swallows the knot of thorns in his throat.

The brackish weight of the words sits in his lungs and turns him to salt.

The wound he is built around burns.

“I'm dyslexic. - he murmurs – I need to write a letter, a long one, but I don't want Tyrion to read it.”

Theon pauses.

The man has even less friends than him, he realizes.

“A letter to...?”

Jaime meditates on that one: which can he hide better, when speaking honestly? Sister or lover?

“My ex.”

“How De profundis of you.”, Theon comments in a chuckle.

“I will probably end up not sending it. - Jaime says, quickly, looking at his legs, clenching his fists, his veins get harder as his blood turns to liquefied anger, _yet, still, the color of wine_ – But I need to let things out, I need... - he pauses, closes his eyes, tries to breathe in the sharp, cutting edge of the air, he lets out a dry, tearless sob – I need to detox.”

Theon pauses.

He doesn't look at him, but somewhere in the space between them.

His long, tapering fingers caress the folder.

He sucks his lips, as if he could measure the weight of all of that only inside his mouth. He sighs, groans, acting distressedly bored, and then he crosses his legs.

“If it's boring, I'll charge you more.”

Jaime scoffs, “You really need to play hard to get, don't you?”

“I am very easy to get and very hard to keep.”, Theon corrects him, then smiles.

He can't totally forget how vulnerable he has seen that man being.

“So you live with Tyrion now or...?”

“Yes. - Jaime glances at his hands – Why? Is he also your type?”

“No, I'm just curious as to why a man in his... thirties? forties? Decides to go live with his brother all of a sudden just out of a break up.”

Jaime lets out a nervous, fake smile.

“Isn't sadness the moment in which we need family the most?”

Theon looks at him for a long while, then his eyes slide to the side, “Can't relate, but okay, let's pretend I do.”

Jaime gives a little spikey, bitter laugh.

But his eyes stop and linger on Theon.

There is something he can feel similar too... and he wonders if that's what people feel when they want to be friends.

But he's too old for that, isn't he?

And he feels too unable when it comes to social matters that have nothing to do with his family. A plumbeuos weight drags him down and cuts him, shredding him, turning him into tension.

His lips quiver, feel chapped.

_Why is it easier to fight with Tarth than to talk to anyone else?_

Then Theon raises his eyes, “Dude. - he blinks – It's no tragic backstory, really.”

Jaime stiffens, wondering why he would say that and then he realizes he probably has sadness written all over his face, like a fool.

Vulnerability scares him and he feels his skin hardening and crystalizing, he stiffens, tries to play off a grin, but then blurts out, almost unsure why.

“I can get that too.”

Theon laughs, “Well, good! - he stands up, grinning – Do you want something to drink from the fridge?”

Maybe making friends was still an option… 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

6.

 

“Wait.”

Theon's smirk looks lopsided, his eyes covered with a wet shine, like glossy glass, and he snorts loudly before letting out a flailed, drunk, wheezing sound.

“You and this... - Theon moves the glass in his hand roughly, letting the wine dance in it and almost spill from its rim in a wave of dark red – Ex o' yours.”

Jaime is instead holding his beer with a strong pressure over the glass body.

He can't bring himself to drink wine without thinking of her.

“Ooh. - he half-sings – She's got a smile it seems to me, reminds me of childhood memories...”

Theon snorts, “Oh, oh, oh, sweet ex o' mine?”

Jaime smirks and nods, feeling a weird pressure clouding his temples.  _Where everything was as fresh as the bright blue sky – no, it never was. It never was fresh. It was suffocating and hot and muggy._

_And the lackluster lust and the sweltering sultriness would entwine with my bones. And I always felt like one half. As by solely existing, I was missing her. And it was weird and sickly but I felt like one half for real._

_And my ankles would burn. And my hand would pulse as if a nail had been dragged across it._

_I came into the world holding onto her feet._

_Biblical and perfect. We were Apollo and Artemis, we were Jacob and Esau, we were all the sweetness and all the rottenness._

_Now and then when I see her face, she takes me away to that special place... and if I'd stare too long I'd probably break down and cry .I would play this song and think of her and smile stupidly._

_But that was when dissociating still felt useful._

_Before it turned into losing hours at a time, not knowing why._

_Before I started doing it daily just to not think about the pain._

_Before I drank too much, before I started chain-smoking, before my nose started losing blood every day, like a fountain._

_Or a spilled bottle of wine._

_I do not miss licking the bitter taste of her cup._

_I just miss the sensation belonging somewhere. To someone._

_Now I am one half again, but not because of missing her, but because I grew up cut and there is so much of me that didn't grow. I am made as a half. I am cut. I am the result of a machete on a heart._

_But she has no blue eyes … she's got eyes of the bluest skies as if they thought of rain … Brienne, though, she has those type of eyes, doesn't she?_

_A blue so tender and intense, so raw. A Crayola stuck in her DNA, poetry wasted away._

_Why am I thinking of her again?_

_Her name feels so sweet and so azure on my tongue._

_My mind melts around her._

“Why didn't you break up sooner? - Theon asks, chugging down his wine – How long did you say you've been together?”

_A lifetime._

“Since I was eight, I think.”

Theon spits out the wine, “Eight? Or eighteen? - he shakes his head – Both is too much, man, what the hell? Eighteen? Did you never, like... have some fun on the side?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“A fuck aside from her. You had it, right?”

Jaime scratches his nape, embarrassed.

Theon blinks and whispers, breathless from outrage, “Was she the only...?”

“What should I have done? I loved her. - Jaime wants to sound amused and cocky, but his voice dies in a croaked shyness – I couldn't just do something meaningless.”

Theon pours another glass to himself and blinks in the void.

“Man, you're pure hearted.”

Jaime raises his eyebrows, curious, “Why, I mean, how many did you...?”

“A bit above average.”

“How much above?”

“In the dozens. - he sucks his lips and pouts – I like to keep myself busy.”

Jaime snickers, then shrugs, “I suppose you get bored easily.”

“Hey, I'm not shallow, I just like to vary in flavor. - he lies, but his eyes run to Robb’s door discretely – Plus, if I find the right one, I want to be mind-blowing.”

Jaime smiles, nods slowly, plays with his fingers, “I don't know, there is... a certain magic to building intimacy from clumsy attempts, some failed, then through it, knowing each other so well that nothing fails.”

“You're weird. - Theon snickers mockingly and softly – Who likes to struggle?”

“It’s all about the result.. - Jaime inclines his beer and lets the golden liquid bend and gently waver across the green, glass skin – And how important the person is.”

“How important you make them, more like. - Theon observes – You can't let everything be one person, that’s insane.”

Jaime frowns, glancing at him.

For an instant, he considers replying harshly. Then he sees that Theon is as fragile as he is, a thin skin, almost translucent, covering and holding together a frightened child.

Unsure how to love, unsure how to grow.

Jaime sips his beer, “I reckon, humbly, that both our methods royally suck.”

Theon nods profoundly, staring in the void, “Possibly.”

“Probably.”

“But!”

“But?”

Theon moves forward, pointing his finger right at Jaime's face, “Listen to me on one thing: you need a rebound.”

“A what now?”, Jaime scoffs.

“Well. - Theon glances at him, then lower – Isn't there anyone who’s sort of captured your...interest?”

_Does he mean like Brienne?_

Theon proceeds, easily reading confusion, signed over Jaime's eyes in neon, “You know, in a 'I like you and enjoy your company'...”

_Okay, then maybe -_

“But I'm not going to spend the rest of my life with you so let's just fuck and have the time of our lives for a couple of weeks?”

_Me and Brienne? No, no, that wouldn’t be possible._

_She's too... pure and true to like me._

_Not that I do, of course._

“I'm not sure. - Jaime fumbles, but forces himself to smile, though it turns into a sour grin – Maybe I should just wait a bit.”

“As you want. - Theon pouts, offended – But keep in mind that the first pancake of a new batch is always bad.”

Jaime's fingertips caress the boarder of the table, black, glass bones that feel too smooth and too heavy against him.

Just like the breath in his lungs.

 

*

 

Sansa is sitting on his couch, which, by itself, would be enough for sirens to screech in his mind like harpies, ripping the sky to shreds.

But she is also brushing her fingers over his books so delicately, and browsing through them with that focused, smart look she has.

She looks like she’s made of summer, sunlight mixing sweetly, stirring rain and warmth.

“I wish I could have a library like this one day.”

“You surely will. - Tyrion muses, sitting next to her on the sofa. He looks at her long, overlapping legs and the way her small ankles bend harmoniously, _she is tall, even above average, she is a tall woman who likes tall men, and my student, above all, she's so young, and I'm a deformed, little dwarf. She is a melody and her skin sings, and I have no music in me_ – You can keep them, if you want to.”

She blinks, “But they are important essays.”

“Ah shush! - he mumbles, a soft smile behind the stubble – I have the teacher’s discount card and you're going to read them more than me.”

She smiles, tenderly, and caresses his hand, suddenly and slowly all together.

“Thank you...”

Tyrion gulps slowly. The knot in his throat tightens and his Adam's apple jumps up in a tense, choked jolt.

“You don't need to thank me. Really.”

Sansa looks at his hand and then her eyes glance and glaze over the apartment.

_Is she finding it a dollhouse?_

“I think it's nice you’ve thought about your family and friends. - she murmurs, lowering her eyes as if she is not sure whether she sounded offensive, and squeezes her hand – You got stuff for them too.”

Tyrion stiffens.

_Does she think it's silly? To have half of a dollhouse and half of a normal house? Does she find me funny?_

_Or like a child?_

_Or an old dwarf, like Snow White's?_

“Or... - she sucks her lips, then bites them, and Tyrion observes her pearly, white fangs, so pure they almost look like marble knives – Maybe your partner is...?”

“Uh?” is the very undignified sound coming out of Tyrion's clenched throat.

Sansa panics, tense, and retreats like a flower scorched by the August red heat.

Her petals shield her.

“I'm sorry, I supposed you and your brother haven't really been... living together since a long time, given his things aren’t here and... well, the furniture is, so, umh... - she lets out a small chuckle – How eloquent of me.”

Tyrion blinks, then frowns, confused.

“Are you asking me if I'm dating a normal person?”

Sansa sucks her lips, “Average-height.”, she corrects him, not with arrogance, just a kind, unmovable firmness.

“I know the correct term. - Tyrion's voice is stained with patronization for an instant, but pity and self-hatred crawl through it, so sour and grey and pungent, that Sansa can feel it in her knuckles – But still, what we mean is normal, right?”

“What I meant, – she says, this time looking at him in the eyes and hers are so blue and tender and his are poison and moss – Is average-height.”

_Why does she insist? Does she really think that?_

_I doubt._

_Who wouldn't want Jaime? Who would accept me or even see me when he exists?_

_Not you. Not anyone. Tysha seemed to. I did trust her once. Never again. People just want to open the sarcophagus of your chest, play with and rearrange your secrets, and pour their fingertips over them, close the defiled, desecrated ribcage and tie it back up. And then they leave, knowing you, bringing your bleeding pain and your wet, drenched secrets in their pockets, like trinkets or souvenirs from a circus’ tour._

He finds himself moving further away and Sansa furrows her eyebrows.

“I'm very focused on my work right now.”

Sansa's eyebrows curl up in distress and worry,  _as if she saw a three-legged dog or some other pitiful being._

“Solitude doesn't do anyone any good. - she mumbles – It's good that your brother is staying with you, then.”

“Why?”

“If I were feeling lonely, I know I'd want mine with me.”

“You're very close, aren't you?”

Sansa nods, “For a while, it was just us. He was my knight and I was his to protect. - she smiles – When the others came and I had to take care of them, at first, I was a bit upset. - she admits – I tried seeing it as my mom trusting me and giving me a grown up task, but I didn't want to always run behind my younger siblings... three of them, even, and... I don't know, it was weird, all of a sudden, being the older one.”

_Five? Five. Five!_

“But he always reminded me that I was his small one. - she murmurs then, fidgeting – I could always run to him and be the little one again... so I suppose you also... could with him?”

“I suppose so. - Tyrion smiles – Though, my mother stopped at three, to be fair.”

Sansa snickers, “Do you have another brother?”

“Sister. - he mumbles – Jaime's twin.”

“Oh, that's why he has a girly face!”, Sansa exclaims.

Then she puts her hand on her mouth, as to shut herself up, while embarrassment shines redder than cherries on her cheeks.

Tyrion blinks, surprised.

Then he smirks slightly, “What?”

“Well, he has... - her cheeks are the tenderest amaranth shade – He has delicate traits.”

_Why doesn't it sound like a compliment?_

“Do you not like it?”

“Not... really? - she admits – He's like a pretty painting more than anything, you know?”

_Wait, is she for real? She doesn't... no, that's impossible._

Tyrion scoffs, “That's a first...”

“Do people usually like him that much?”

“More than me. - Tyrion suggests with a small smirk, raising his eyebrows – But I guess that's just because they have eyes.”

Sansa moves forward, almost as if she wanted to hold him or promise it was not like that.

But it was, of course, right? It couldn't be otherwise.

He sucks his lips.

“I know that. - she gulps slowly, her voice soft and yet as thin as ice that’s about to crack – Years ago, I may have thought the same, being pretty seemed important at the time.”

Tyrion frowns, confused.

“As in, you think you're not?”

“There is prettier. - Sansa presses her hands together, fidgeting – People like Margaery or … - she shakes her head – But regardless, he is a very pretty person, but that doesn't make him more likeable. He is likeable to me because he seems kind with you and ...”

“As in, charity work?”

_As in, you look like you'll crack if you aren't met with kindness. Or like you're so used to harshness that you're not sure of what to do with a kind word or gesture. Or sweetness, at all._

_As in, you look like you need his care. Care from everyone._

_But you didn't get much of it, did you?_

“As in, he's a good brother and he's kind to my professor, which I have a lot of admiration for.”

Tyrion seems to soften.

His beard jumps slightly as he curls his lips up.

“Oh, it's the sense of humor.”

“That and the good dressing style.”

“Really? - he smirks – You're telling me that coming to lessons with a suit is finally working?”

Sansa laughs, “Oh, please, I'm sure some student must have tried to...” , she rolls her eyes up, unsure of how to formulate it.

“Allow me to climb on her like a squirrel?”, he suggests, amused.

Sansa's giggle echoes like soft, shattered light over a river.

“You're so... - she shakes her head – Should you even say these things?”

“I don't know. - he smirks and shrugs, _but if it makes you laugh, I will, it's my only actual skill with women, when both fully dressed_ – Somebody has to take jokes that are offered on a silver plate.”

She looks at her fingers, “I wish I could laugh at my insecurities like that, instead of letting them sink to the bottom of my belly.”

“You do know that your insecurities are silly, right?”, he asks, standing up to pour both of them another round of tea and lemon.

She smiles, “You’ve said so, that I'm smart and pretty. - she muses – I'm not even sure if I should use my professor as a self-esteem machine.”

“You definitely should. - he nods profoundly – Usually we do only the opposite and, trust me, it doesn't give much space for satisfaction or gratefulness.”

“I just... let's say my ex-boyfriends didn't really help with that.”

Tyrion smacks his lips and clacks his tongue against his palate, “You'll understand soon that being smart comes with the curse of having to live next to people who make your brain hurt.”

Sansa chuckles, “That sounds a bit harsh.”

Tyrion's glance falls on her hands.

“Am I the first dwarf you’ve ever met?”

Sansa blinks, “Does it matter?”

“The first time I saw someone else that was like me, was when Jaime took me to the theatre to see a movie. - he mumbles, then looks at her – But our personalities didn't match much.”

She smiles thinly.

“I know I'm not supposed to ask. - Sansa manages to premise, forcing herself to remember he is a professor – But, when we are both feeling lonely could we... meet for coffee?”

“I'd love to enjoy your company.”, he says, without grasping the soft gleam in her eyes and the trembling shiver in her chest.

 

*

 

Theon's heel clacks and he almost trips against the door.

The laugh that comes out of his voice is high and low and desperate, and soon turns into something of a wet moan.

He throws himself on the bed and rolls in the blankets, feeling the fluffiness of cotton around him – Robb's sheets, of course, he would never buy cotton; but rubbing himself on Robb's bed has become almost a sick little fantasy. He has dreamt of Robb pushing him on those sheets, taking him, driving into him madly.

He finds himself hard.

Why did he talk about love with Jaime Lannister?

He felt so sad, he felt so bitter, he needed Robb. He clenches the sheets and muffles his sounds by biting into the blanket, his erection rubs through the trousers, feeling harder and bigger and more constricted with each jolt of his hips.

When the light turns on, surprising him, he reacts too slowly, half blinded, and glances at Robb with a mix of drowsiness and incredulity –  _is it a dream? Did I fall asleep hard and I'm seeing you now?_

Robb frowns, “Why are you in my... - then his eyes widen, but not in horror, oh no, in black pupilled delight, and he sucks his lips nervously before lowering his eyes and letting his glance escape like a flipped ball, up and down, and there at Theon's huge crotch again – Has a date left you with blue balls?”

Theon nods, weakly, his eyes half closed, half lidded with a tipsy lewdness.

Robb bites his bottom lip in frustration – he knows Theon can't handle his wine but he should have been able to distinguish between their rooms or sheets and, god, he is staring at his crotch again.

_Of course. Fuck._

“Jaime, I-”

“Jaime? - Robb frowns, the name is unfamiliar but – Who is Jaime?”

Theon rolls on his back, the tent in his pants even more evident now, straining the poor jeans. His voice sounds so drunk and so silly and Robb can feel his own blood boil, but he tries not to look … 

“Tyrion's brother. - Theon mumbles – He's like... all over the place and...”

“Wait. Brother?”

_A man?_

He could accept Theon being straight, of course. He knows - so is most of the population - and that he has had to kind of chug down, but... if he is bisexual … with a man? And another man? At that point, why not him?

What is so wrong with him?

_Am I so unlovable to you? The brother of Tyrion Lannister, even? How old is he?_

“Yeah? - Theon frowns – He came up for a drink?”

“Only one? - Robb passive-aggresses, crossing his arms – Then your tolerance has really dropped.”

“Maybe a bit more. - Theon admits, holding his head as he sits up – Why is it import...”

Robb's body presses against his, his hands find his wrists, his eyes nailed on his own. Thunder through the nails he sinks into his flesh. And Theon lays there, crucified onto a halfway hanged dream, dancing on a spider web of a chance.

And Robb bows down and kisses him.

Voracious, sloppy, heated. 

And Theon closes his eyes and replies, bobbing his head slightly, opening his mouth fully and allowing Robb’s tongue in.

And it's wet fire.

Theon moans drunk in the kiss, and Robb cups his face and lets the heat of their tongues melt together.

Robb's taste rushes into and washes over Theon's mouth, and he finds himself eagerly searching for him more and more.  _Finally, finally._

_It feels so untrue he's sure it will disappear and turn to dust and dreams._

His Robb …

Robb mumbles something into the kiss, and Theon finds his voice as he pushes against Robb, refusing to let the kiss die and their mouths to part for real.

“Don't spoil it, don't spoil it, don't spoil it...”, he slurs, as a prayer, on the verge of Robb's mouth, half-muffled by their tongues.

“Not gonna spoil it.”, Robb promises, and sinks into him again. 

He drives through Theon, his hands search for him, one pins down Theon's wrist, the other lifts the hem of Theon’s shirt enough for him to play with the fjord where Theon’s waist melts into his hip, the iliac crest rising perfect. 

Theon moans against him more, his fingers rushing through Robb's curls in a slowly moving fever and in a blue-stained, raw harmony.

Then he parts, suddenly. His voice reduced to just a thin, panting breath.

“Just to be clear. - Theon whispers – This is happening?”

Robb smiles, almost laughs, too nervous to be true. His eyes shining.

“Oh god, I hope so.”

Theon laughs for both, then his hands find Robb's shirt and tear it open.

 

*

 

“You can't stay closed in here for the whole night.”, Tyrion scolds him.

Jaime raises an eyebrow, unconvinced.

“Why not?”

“You need to go out. - he mumbles, grabbing their coats – You went to the apartment and couldn't even come back with one box and you were clearly tipsy.”

“... perhaps.”, Jaime admits.

Tyrion puts on a tie. That is a bad sign.

“I'm going to be out for the rest of the day. It’s the fundraising day of the University, conferences, talks, food more refined by name than taste and terrible company. - he promises, with a grin – Wanna join?”

Jaime glances at him obliquely, “You make it sound so inviting... how could I refuse?”

He should have had. With hindsight, he was more than blind.

He was trusting.

And that's how he finds himself, award-winning grin on his face, but hands trembling, as Taena Merrywheather is all over him, hands on shoulders or hips, asking him about Cersei. In detail.

Cersei and Taena had had a... thing, or a fling, he isn’t sure.

Cersei always said she hadn't done much, but he has never fully believed her.

But it was with a woman, so he had tried to press himself into not minding it.

A man should have found it arousing, right? Instead he just felt bitter and sour and nauseated by the idea of Cersei with someone else, even just for a kiss.

Robert had been enough sharing for his patience over the years.

But Taena seems to, not only, not mind the obvious intimacy of the talk, but to find it extremely necessary to cling onto him and ask him all sorts of questions he would rather forget quickly.

Tyrion, though, is ultimately horridly busy, discussing animatedly with the professor of Mediterranean Cultures, Oberyn Martell, and his brother, Doran, of History of European Monarchical Relations.

The engaging and compelling topic must be utterly boring, judging from how even the poor head of the department, Varys, rolls his eyes to the ceiling halfway through to go fill his glass.

Taena's long nails around his elbows are claws.

Her eyes are muddy pools of craving of vultures and her voice sounds like honey-coated barbed wire.

Jaime clenches his heart tightly, his chest squeezing uncomfortably, while she holds him and discusses more for the pleasure of the sound of her own voice than out of actual curiosity; she speaks about Cersei, asks of her, asks him about what he’s doing in his life and if he could give her advice on her insurance.

Her words, though, he can barely distinguish one from the other.

They mix and melt, as if molten metal. It is impossible for him to separate them all.

He sees Theon, in the middle of the room, glass of wine in his hand and vein pulsing on his head, as he discusses with an older man, red-headed, fair skinned, that looks like his responsible.

Jaime can't avoid noticing how Theon seems to constantly be thrown and surrounded by red-heads.

“And so, tell me, how did Cersei take your sudden sabbatical year?”

“In no peculiar way. - Jaime replies, dryly smirking, forcing himself to drink enough chardonnay to be able to sound cheerful – I didn't tell her.”

“You didn't? - she scoffs, outraged – She should be the first to know.”

Jaime feels a slimy shiver of disgust ride the shield of his back, white and slow.

“I don't see why.”

Jaime shows a grimace to Theon, hoping he'd see and come help.

Theon's pupils dilate and his eyebrows furrow, but he doesn't come any closer. Jaime cruses any god with a mythology.

He is in panic, but can't lose focus.

“Well. - her voice turns metallic then – For obvious reasons.”

Jaime shivers.

_Does she know? Did Cersei tell her? Is she mad? She always forbid me to tell anyone and then she tells a Merrywheather? Of all people?_

_Was that rule only applicable to me?_

_Was it like fidelity? A truth and a light we thought we shared while it was all me, only me, all alone, since the start?_

_Is this what it means to see even the little things crumble, like bridges in tornados?_

_How do I reply? What do I tell her?_

“Obvious reasons? - he murmurs, as if amused – In my experience, deciding something is obvious is a terrible mistake, especially pertaining Cersei and the truth she’s shared.”

Taena smirks.

Her thin lips now almost look like a red, bleeding wound, “Cersei is such an honest person, I'm not sure how you could think that.”

_HONEST?_

_Honest?_

_Honest!_

_Her!_

_Honest. Honest. ...honest!_

Two thousand and twenty two too many replies knock at the door of Jaime's mind,

_Maybe if your standards are at the level of politicians or FOX news. Oh, really, did she tell you about Lancel's weak tongue game? Apparently with anyone except me! How I love being special! Cersei couldn't be honest if she had the lasso of truth holding her shibari-ed to the roof. I'm not sure if trusting Cersei could be considered more like reckless idiocy or pure avant-garde in the masochist community._

He’s grinning uncomfortably and his lips burn with the need to speak, to hurt, to slam.

When he opens his mouth, though, none of it comes out.

Tarth is between them.

“Lannister. - she says, martial, but desperately trying to seem pleasantly surprised, as she gives a little tilt of the head – Here you are. - her acting is off and awkward and stiff and yet, her voice feels so warm that Jaime stops, stares at her, blinking, as if he needs it to gasp for air – I've been searching for you for hours.”

Brienne grabs his elbow, moving him with slight pressure. She has a way with leading him. Naturally.

Jaime obeys, quickly, following her, almost bewitched, surely bewildered. 

His eyes nailed on her.

She is wearing a sapphire blue man tailleur, and yet she has never looked more like a woman than right then, almost military in cold-cut clothes.

She’s saved him, he realizes.

He clears his throat, “Thank you... - he whispers, looking at the other side of the room, where Taena is. He shivers and forces himself to joke around – Fangirls can be a huge problem.”

Brienne doesn't look at him.

Her bright blue eyes are lost in the void, as if she needs to stubbornly evade his face.

As if, if she stared, she would have fallen into a trap.

“You looked pale. - she explains, trying hard not to let emotions pour like wax seas and coat her words – As if you were going to faint.”

Jaime forces himself, begs himself to laugh. Or belittle it. Or shake his head.

“It was boredom.”, he lies, well, quickly and effectively, he hopes.

“You didn't seem bored. - she observes, squinting her eyes, as if she needed not to watch him – You seemed like you were going to puke.”

“ _That_ was the shrimps.”, he lies.

His glance lingers on Brienne for a moment more, on her naked, exposed shoulders, on the way the blue suits her skin and hair, on the way she walks like half a knight and half a dream.

Jaime snorts, seeing her getting more and more stubborn in looking away.

“Does just the sight of me bother you?”

She jolts, almost. Shivers run through her hair, making them electric. And she looks at him as if she’s seeing him for the first time.

“It's not that.”, Brienne turns to him, finally, rude and harsh and angry.

And he loves that look in her eyes, as if she were a pure azure flame.

The hottest part of a flame.

“What is it, then?”, he asks, unable of holding back a grin.

She saved him. She had cared.

Brienne hesitates, stutters, groans, shakes her head, “You just looked sick.”

“Brienne!”

She rolls her eyes back into her skull, as soon as she hears the voice.

_This is going to be funny_ , Jaime thinks, mischievously; at least until the voice gets a body and the body moves to Brienne, holds her by the arms and kisses her quickly, with a lot of uselessly intimate little pecks.

“Ronnet. - she lets out a sound between a groan, a grunt and a growl – How... unexpected.”

The man, long beard and hair, all auburn, has big, pretty eyes; it looks like him and Brienne have known each other since much longer than the occasion lets imagine, and Jaime notes it down with a weird, burning bitterness. The man grins, all satisfied, and waves at her in the most awkward way possible.

“My uncle is giving a lecture.”, he points at the professor previously talking to Theon, and smiles. “You, instead?”

There is something mocking in his voice.

Like a snake, like a dagger, cutting thin lines in glass.

_Stop hurting her, she doesn't deserve it. She saved me._

_I should help her too._

_His smirk has something of Cersei's._ Jaime hates it.

“Is this your... - a scoff – Escort?”

Brienne opens her mouth, but a little sob almost comes out from her foundations, round and blue and too tender and soft to be taken apart.

“Yes.”, Jaime replies, quickly.

Brienne blinks, before turning to him. Surprised, muted, and totally baffled.

“Yes, I am.”, Jaime repeats, putting his hand on Brienne's waist.

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

7.

 

“… oh, really?”, Ronnet asks, a weird, stinging sharpness in his voice.

Brienne can’t say if he seems more amused or angry.

Maybe it annoys him to find his expectations wronged, maybe he simply finds it unbelievable. Brienne sucks her bottom lip, biting it slowly.

She knows, of course, that Jaime Lannister is, well, what people would call handsome.

Not that it matters to her, of course, he’s pretty like thousands of other boys and men have been pretty over the course of the almost thirty past years of her life.

There is something obvious and somewhat annoying about it.

But she always finds that, while of course, the eye has weight on the heart, it is kindness that has always done the trick in stealing one. Renly is beautiful, but she had fallen for the kind boy who didn’t mock her rather than his deep blue eyes and wide shoulders.

And kindness as a quality is a total stranger to Jaime Lannister.

Jaime Lannister is nothing but unkind, mocking, sarcastic. 

He has insulted her enough for her to know that.

… and if he has saved her from the humiliation of Ronnet, it’s probably because he had found it funny, right?

“And, what do you do, if I may ask?”, Ronnet more or less demands, his eyes riding Jaime’s body top to bottom, studying him suspiciously.

“Oh. - Jaime smirks, amused – I’m the vice-president of Lannister corp.”

Brienne feels her jaw drop.

Ronnet’s eyeballs widen, almost bulging out.

“...the… the company that produces luxury technology?”

“Yes, but to be fair, I’m mostly involved in the legal matters. It’s quite boring.”

Ronnet Connington’s face is almost as red as his hair.

“And… - his voice comes out all strangled and stranded – What are you doing here, then again?”

Jaime’s hand holds Brienne’s wide waist, pulling her closer to him.

She blinks, staring at him, bewildered and lost.

For once in long years, she feels small.

Jaime Lannister is smirking, beaming with joy that makes no sense – does it really amuse him that much to see her struggle in embarrassment? Or does he know Connington and aims to humiliate him? 

“My brother, Tyrion, you have surely heard of him, right? Youngest professor to ever be tenured in a University? Highest number of academic recognition and prizes? - a wicked grin, something similar to smug - it burns low, liquid embers in Brienne’s stomach – He introduced us this year. - he says, then gives Brienne the most utterly devoted look, like he loves her for real, she feels sickness riding her throat to the brim in salty brackish waves of nausea – And we’ve been inseparable ever since. - he turns to Ronnet again, with an expression that’s passed from delight to pure romance – Like those lovebirds, how are they called, agapornis? Fisher? Something like that. - a laugh – I’m not big on ornithology. What I know is that those parrots may even die when separated, they are so in love, you cannot even tell them apart, you know? Male from female.”

“Well. - Ronnet scoffs low – One can tell you two apart for sure.”

Brienne feels her nerves spring into steel.

But Jaime just laughs, “Now, now, it’s not very nice of you to point out my height. - he raises an eyebrow – I know some men are very obsessed with how tall they are, but in my experience, other lengths are more useful.”

Ronnet almost chokes himself on that.

Brienne suddenly feels a pang of shame running down her back, as she finds herself casually enjoying the way he is feeling as awkward as she did when he humiliated her.

But she also knows that’s not the right way.

And it’s bitter and dark, and she doesn’t want to be like that.

She clears her voice, “How are Raymund and Alynne?”

“Oh. - he lights up then – They are fine, really, Alynne asks of you at times.”

“That’s very kind of her. - Brienne fumbles, feeling Jaime’s eyes burning greenly on her skin – If you’d excuse me now, Jaime and I need to find someone.”

“Sure. - he forces a smile out of his thin mouth – You… hm, look happy.”

“She quite is.”, Jaime intrudes, his hand now cupping the curl of her hip.

And Brienne prays to herself not to imagine things, but she does, oh, she does. And yet, it’s so uncomfortable, feels so right and wrong all together, mixed.

Salt and sugar curling together, melting and caramelizing at the bottom of her brain, covering her nerves.

Jaime leads her to a more silent part of the room, letting Ronnet go on and talk to his uncle and his assistant. 

He is still looking around, scoping and browsing the room, searching for Tyrion, when Brienne abruptly asks, “Why did you do that?”

He shrugs.

He wants to admit he doesn’t really know why, but the way she seems to feel humiliated by him sits wrongly on his lungs.

She seems afraid and he didn’t want her to feel like that.

“I guessed he was an ex.”, he mumbles, looking away stubbornly.

“This is not a reason.”

“Then, I don’t know.”

Brienne’s eyes widen, confused.

She bites her bottom lip until the pink burns red, “Anyway, thank you.”

“He looked like a jerk anyway.”, Jaime mumbles, now feeling shy as he can’t place his eyes on Brienne’s body. She looks good.

Not graceful, that never. But she is mesmerizing, like the deepest blue of the sea, cut open. 

He finds his throat knotting and his voice stretched, “He needed a lesson.”

She frowns, then observes him, as if she has never seen him before, as if he’s new.

And she thinks of Tyrion.

“You don’t like bullies much, do you?”

“Does anyone like them?”, Jaime asks without looking at her, but feeling her in the air trembling against his skin anyway.

“You do seem quite the bully at first. - she observes – Poor manners and all.”

“I lack the care for social expectations and mass-judgment, I fear.”

She lets out a small laugh.

“That does sound like you, after all.”, she admits.

Jaime chuckles, nodding to himself, “Never was very good at caring for people’s opinions.”

Brienne stares.

How she wishes she could wash away that pain too. The pain of expectations, the pain of judgment, the pain of the gap between what she is and what people would like her to be.

It hurts her all over, all the time.

How many times has she fallen down the void, scratched her hands trying to hold the hems of earth at the sides of the abyss, trying to crawl back up?

How many times did things crossbow the life out of her, thunderbolting her into the pit of wet, gloomy darkness that is her butchered self-esteem?

She stares at Jaime.

Sure he has had it easier than her: beautiful like he is, witty too, rich. And the confrontation with his brother surely never left him the losing party.

It must have been easy being Jaime Lannister.

Guilt sinks in and embitters her lips as Brienne realizes he has helped her and she can’t just be harsh.

But she hates owing people favours.

“I’d like to thank you.”, she says, half soft and half cutting, sharp.

Jaime flashes her a little smirk, “I accept payments in baked goods.”

She blinks.

She did think of him to be childish, but that was beyond unusual.

“… you want me to bake for you?”

“I’m terrible, and Tyrion is only good with savory food.”

“How… unsurprisingly stereotypical.”, she chuckles, darkly.

Jaime laughs, “I’ll let you know, - he says, lips curling up like a cats when seeing cream – It’s not due to my manhood, as much as being born spoiled rich. I always had people cooking for me and before I knew it, it started to seem so hard and… well, I’m so picky that my attempts over the years made my taste-buds consider ritual suicide.” 

Brienne blinks, then frowns, “You’re… so… weird.”

“Self-indulgent and resistant to change seem to better suit the situation.”

She sucks her lips in, “I have a better deal for you.”

“Uh. - he whistles, interested – Enlighten me, darling.”

“I’ll teach you to cook.”

“Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime? - Jaime muses, tilting his head and squinting his eyes – Why not.”

Brienne smiles, almost proud.

“In exchange. - Jaime smirks, amused – Should I fake being your date for other events and make that man rot with jealousy?”

Brienne’s expression turns sour again.

“No. - she scoffs – That wouldn’t be right. Lying once is sufficient. But I don’t want to give you excuses for your situation with food and you did help me, so.”

“...I feel like you’re getting the short end of the deal, though.”

Brienne shrugs, looks away.

“In case, I’ll reserve myself a favour for when I need one.”

Jaime’s eyes run on her figure slowly, brushing her hips gently.

“… sure, why not.”

 

*

 

“I see your brother is here too.”

Tyrion doesn’t need to turn to recognize the voice.

“Your nephew too.”

“I dropped him with Greyjoy. - Jon comments, hiding his amusement – I think he’ll imagine killing me for it.”

“Don’t be too pessimistic. - Tyrion muses, raising his eyes from his wine glass – Maybe Ronnet’s obnoxious pig-headedness will be so flattering to Greyjoy’s ego that he’ll enjoy the compliment as a self-esteem booster.”

“As long as he keeps Ronnet far away from me…”

“You two still haven’t made up.”

“He thinks we have.”

“Ah-a. - Tyrion smirks, curling lips up – How are you finding yourself with your new slave?”

“He’s good. - Jon mumbles, lighting up a cigar – He’s bright, connects quickly and uniquely. He lacks discipline, thought.”

“You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”, Tyrion points out with a wink.

Jon Connington laughs, “You, old punk ass. - he scoffs – Why do you ask? Planning to steal Theon from me?”

Tyrion shrugs, shakes his head.

“No, I’ve… I will soon have the brightest assistant this decade.”

“Decade? That’s a big bet.”, Jon observes, now curious.

“Perhaps. - Tyrion breathes in – But one I’m willing to take.”

Jon raises an eyebrow and lets out some white smoke. His voice is low, a dark whisper.

“Tell me you haven’t actually developed feelings for her.”

Tyrion tries to chuckle but his voice trips, “Me? She’s a student.”

And it cracks.

And he looks away.

“And here I thought I was going to have the most pathetic and sad love life of the department. - Jon Connington huffs – One can never count his prizes before the end, can he?”

Tyrion’s eye widen and he walks away but Jon follows him, benevolently mischievous.

“Does Varys know?”

“Oh, please! - Tyrion groans – Do I look like a masochist to you?”

“Is this a serious question or a rhetorical one? Because the answer differs.”

Tyrion rolls his eyes back into his skull, shakes his head.

“It’s just… a crush. It’s not like you and… you know.”

Jon doesn’t seem amused any longer, he clenches his own arms protectively, and swallows until his throat seem to get tense and covered with cold iron.

“Of course it’s not.”

The sharp shards of the thorns of guilt clench around Tyrion’s ankles and pierce his fat, heavy tongue.

“… look, maybe it’s the same, but also… don’t worry about me.”

“This may come off as a surprise but charming, charismatic straight men are not the first I worry about when sentimental pain seems imminent.”

“This may come off as downright traumatic to you, but women don’t line up for the chance to date a dwarf.”

“What about the chance to date a charming professor with a good sense of humour, a witty mind and kind heart?”

Tyrion snorts, “Doubting the latter. - he scoffs – The body does change a lot, you should know that.”

“I do. - Jon admits with a sad laugh – But this doesn’t mean you should give up just yet.”

Tyrion raises an eyebrow.

“...are you seeing someone?”

“Let’s say so. - he gives a small smile – Perhaps.”

“You and Oberyn again?”

“Nah. Brynden Tully, from the archaeologist’s society.”

Tyrion’s eyebrows lift and he chugs down some wine, quickly, “Geriatric Indiana Jones. Fancy.”

“He’s good in bed.”

“… I… really was not asking?”

“I bear descriptions of women’s boobs every day, you could give back.”

Tyrion nods knowingly, “You see, my problem is, I’m not very good at altruistic behavior.”

He glances to the other side of the room, where Theon is trying extremely hard to wear a smirk, not too blatantly mocking, in front of Ronnet, who is going on and on about something that bores him to death.

He should probably stop being so diffident of him now that he knows his ideas about Theon and Sansa Stark were, well, wrong.

But Tyrion is not very used to being wrong. And he’s not sure how to approach the prospect.

He decides to raise his hand and wave at Theon, then signal him to come, saving him from Ronnet, then panickingly looking around for someone he knew to talk to.

Theon breathes out, exasperated, as he reaches Tyrion, who hands him a glass of wine.

“Finally, gods that was draining.”

Tyrion chuckles, “You did look like you needed help.”

“Horribly so.”, Theon chugs down his red wine.

Tyrion stares at his throat and only then notices a deep purple bruise, and bite marks peeking from the shirt of the suit. They also run behind his neck, barely hidden by his thick hair.

“I’m guessing you had more fun this afternoon?”

Theon glances at him, unsure of what he’s aiming at. 

Then again, he relaxes, flashes a grinning, smug, cocky smirk, and with a hand in his pocket and the other around the glass stem, he lets out a lopsided, “Yes, but I have to find a way to avoid it becoming a mess.”

“Another married professor? - Tyrion groans – Greyjoy, at least not members of the faculty.”

Theon shakes his head.

“Nothing of the sort. - he licks his lips – A friend, and you know how it is, when one messes up friendships.”

Tyrion scoffs, “Not really, no.”

Theon blinks, he doesn’t seem to realize why.

Was he surrounded by dumb people all of a sudden?

“Most of my friends are men.”

“Oh. Right. - Theon mumbles, sips – Sansa is not a friend yet, is she?”

“She is a talented student. - he swallows – But I would find unprofessional to refer to her otherwise.”

Theon tastes it and nods.

And then smirks.

“She values your opinion highly.”

“Is that a joke?”, he snaps.

But Theon stares at him, blank and confused.

“… no?”

Tyrion shakes off the dull dim din that numbed him, he shrugs off the greyish blue film left by his own silence.

He knows he feels in a way others don’t.

He knows others will never know how it feels.

And yet he can’t shut up about it. He can’t find comfort or rest.

He needs to yell, he needs to shake the earth and highlight the road and scream and roam.

He needs them to know he knows –  _I’m just that to all of them, aren’t I? A cut man, a midget, a halfling, a hobbit, call it as you wish, call me an imp, call me a dwarf, a satyr, a gnome. Call me those names instead of shutting up and screaming them with just your eyes. I’m not allowed anger if you don’t expose yourselves._

_I’m not allowed to yell, if you don’t admit how you see me._

_How she sees me._

_She may not like Jaime – still, how can I be sure? - but in my dreams I know, if I were as tall as him, she would see me otherwise._

_She probably wouldn’t mind the scar I got from Cersei._

_She may even find it charming. Some women do._

_Maybe._

_If I were normal._

_But I’ll never be._

Tyrion lets the wine dance in his glass, red and about to spill.

The whirlpool turns into a vertigo.

The whirlpool swallows up his heart.

And all he can see from the gutter of his thoughts is the sweetest maple red of her hair.

 

*

 

theon (23.07):

heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey

 

robb (23.07):

… hey?

 

theon (23.07):

mayyyybe I fucked it up and draaaaaaaaank a tinsy bit too much???

 

robb (23.07):

and now you need a ride home? =_= 

robb (23.08):

curious you’d ask that since, after your shower you seemed to be rushing out so quickly, almost like you were avoiding me … 

robb (23.08):

im sure it was my impression?

 

theon (23.08):

dnt passiveaggress me stork

theon (23.08):

not wanting to like talk about fucking ssss perfectly normal okk

theon (23.09):

like I never did that shit

theon (23.09):

I dnt know how to talk too you fter that without making a huuuuuge mess

 

robb (23.09):

… wait for me there, I’ll come to drive you home

 

theon (23.09):

thaaaaaaaaaanx

theon (23.09):

u dont have to if like u dont wanna

 

robb (23.10):

as if, idiot

robb (23.11):

<3 there in 5

 

Robb raises from the sofa with a deep groan.

He smoothes his shirt and jeans, and puts his shoes back on. 

“I have to go fetch a drunk squid. - he claims, loud enough for Sansa to hear him – I’ll be back soon.”

Sansa leaves her books on the desk and rushes to the doorstep of her room.

“Is he okay?”

“Knowing him? He’s had three glasses of wine and now he’s knocked out. - Robb laughs, endeared, smiling to himself – You know how he is.”

“I do. - she curls her lips up – But do you have to tell me something?”

“Me? - he blushes up to his ears, and it burns a bit and he touches the shell as if it scalded him, rubbing his nape – Nah, nah, nothing.”

Sansa lets out a knowingly smile.

“Of course, must have been an impression. - she twirls her fingers on the doorknob, making big kitten eyes at him – Since you are out…”

Robb rolls his eyes back into his skull and over the ceiling, sighing.

Sisters.

“Which taste?”

“Cinnamon buns! - Sansa claps, enthusiastic, with a little jump – Or strawberry cheesecake.”

He smiles at her, trying to hide the beaming behind a done expression.

“Of course, princess.”

“Thank you. - she trots back into her room, smiling – And cuddle Theon a bit!”

“Focus on your exam, will you?”

He walks down the stairs and into the car with a certain feverish tension.

Theon had been avoiding him, but he knows he wanted it, he knows what they had meant something. It was not just sex.

It was stupid to say, but he knew it.

Paradoxically, the same couldn’t be said about how Sansa was: it was so confusing.

She had seemed upbeat all day, dancing around, reading happily, singing along – she was in a great mood after days of struggling with her thesis and insecurities.

Robb wonders if that afternoon she spent out was really spent with the professor or with a new boyfriend.

_She would tell me, wouldn’t she?_

He swallows down, guilt sinking in.

He didn’t tell Sansa about Theon, so how could he expect her to?

And yet… and yet the idea of her not sharing… he was worried, beyond so. Theon did calm him but it was just too hard to accept.

Not being able to protect Sansa again was a nightmare.

Lit by the shaft of orange artificial sunlight of the traffic lamps, Robb drives with almost no perception of the world around him.

It’s his only duty as a brother: to protect.

He can’t.

He finds himself struggling with everything.

His hands tremble, he holds the stirring wheel and he breathes in the night.

_One, two, three._ Knuckles go white.

_One, two, three. Panic._

_One, two, three. Please, keep calm._

_One, two, three. Relax. Reprise. Great Pyramid of Giza, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, this method will never calm me down, what did I pay the anxiety consultant for?, Statue of Zeus at Olympia, who even made it? Phidias? Was it Phidias?, Statue of Zeus at Olympia, Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, Colossus of Rhodes, I should just get pills for this shit, Colossus of Rhodes, Lighthouse of Alexandria. Reprise? Nah._

_One, two, three. Theon needs me. At least he does. Someone does. He won’t leave._

_He won’t leave, he needs me._

_One, two, three,_ knuckles white, pain in the hand. It runs electric, it cuts his nerves, it’s a machete through his spine.

_Chop, chop, chop. You’re useless. You get left behind._

Robb sucks his lips, feeling his breathing accelerate.

The blue is bleeding alight out of his eyes when he spots Theon, who rushes into the car laughing, wasted and splendid, eyes shining and cheeks flushed red, and kisses him.

As if a fool, as if mad, as if lost in him.

Robb smiles against it, feeling his heart sooth.

 

 


End file.
